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"Cast" skulls/totenkopfs - Just a question...

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    "Cast" skulls/totenkopfs - Just a question...

    You've all seen cast skulls so I hope I don't need to post a photo. There are real bad ones as well as very nice ones showing none of the signs of having been crudely done. Some are marked correctly while others...

    Where I remain a novice in SS stuff I'm just wondering if it's in the regulations somewhere that there would be no casting of SS insignia allowed - ever; that, in fact, ALL manufacturers had to develope/utilize the stamping process in their manufacture?

    The tendancy is to believe that the Germans used stamping due to quality issues with the casting process but that isn't accurate. If one buys into the premise that casting was always some cheap, post war, unacceptable means of creating insignia how do the SS pros explain the fact that General Field Marshal batons, affixed to shoulderboards, come in both stamped as well as silver cast?

    Clearly, achieving the highest rank in the German military, the expectation would be that the workmanship of their (G.F.M.) insignia would be top notch. If batons cast in silver were acceptable (as a manufacturing process) to the most elite of the officer corps, providing high quality, very detailed results, why wouldn't high quality casting be acceptable in the production of the insignia for some Untersturmfuhrer, especially as the war took its toll on German manufacturing capabilities?

    Just a dumb question from a yet to be enlightened collector.

    #2
    Casting

    Originally posted by Phoenixpwb View Post
    You've all seen cast skulls so I hope I don't need to post a photo. There are real bad ones as well as very nice ones showing none of the signs of having been crudely done. Some are marked correctly while others...

    Where I remain a novice in SS stuff I'm just wondering if it's in the regulations somewhere that there would be no casting of SS insignia allowed - ever; that, in fact, ALL manufacturers had to develope/utilize the stamping process in their manufacture?

    The tendancy is to believe that the Germans used stamping due to quality issues with the casting process but that isn't accurate. If one buys into the premise that casting was always some cheap, post war, unacceptable means of creating insignia how do the SS pros explain the fact that General Field Marshal batons, affixed to shoulderboards, come in both stamped as well as silver cast?

    Clearly, achieving the highest rank in the German military, the expectation would be that the workmanship of their (G.F.M.) insignia would be top notch. If batons cast in silver were acceptable (as a manufacturing process) to the most elite of the officer corps, providing high quality, very detailed results, why wouldn't high quality casting be acceptable in the production of the insignia for some Untersturmfuhrer, especially as the war took its toll on German manufacturing capabilities?

    Just a dumb question from a yet to be enlightened collector.
    The answer is a simple one. Casting is acceptable in small production runs such as the FM batons. The stamping method was used to reduce the cost of an item as many hundreds or thousands could be produced in a very rapid fashion at little cost. Casting skulls for example would have been too cost prohibative due to the casting process and time required.
    Peter

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