SS Leistungsrune

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

many thanks for the infos Lasse ! Very interesting !

Did you meet Frank Gustavsson, or did this volunteer wrote something after the war ?

See You

Vince

[jabnus]

Hi Lasse,

This is as Vince says very interesting. Do you have any more info on where this information comes from?

regards,
Gaston

[Ludwig]

Hi Lasse,

This is as Vince says very interesting. Do you have any more info on where this information comes from?

regards,
Gaston

From me.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

thanks Gaston for your replies.
Of course if you count the fakers, there are more than 1 maker.
Just joking.

For now we identified physically two variants, but all the other ones have low quality and are badly sized, and usually each of them is having a few problems. Not only one problem, many.

Therefore we are waiting your work, it may be really interesting to have confirmation on the various makers. DO you know when it will be published ?

But if i'm right, the various officially makers should have a similar (and high) quality production right ?

In the present case the Sonnenrad is very bad, like the runes. And we are not talking of the cheap plastic gum wrapper...

See You

Vince

[Steve T]

Hello,

Before anything, we (Vincent and I) don’t want to start a useless war about this Leistungsrune, or the ones that we don’t like.
With the lack of confirmed info, we started working on this medal for a few months.

I have to apologize for my first “positive” statement posted in the first few posts.

We are working on a listing of “real” and “fake” Leistungsrunen, to try to work on the characteristics of the medal.
We listed them with a short name, usually the owner, the stores that were selling the medals, or the guy who posted it (and we don’t know if the guy is the owner). Some Leistungsrunen passed from hand to hand, but we tried to make a clear identification between all the medals.

In our opinion, this Leistungsrune (and at least two other ones we found pictures on the internet and are listed as “real ones”) is not good. Infact if you forget all the very poor fakes (with RZM marks, rivets etc), some characteristics found on this Leitstungsrune (and on the “Gladkov” and the “Tarnmilitaria” medals) are not matching AT ALL the characteristics of real medals.

You can check a Leistungsrune with more than a half-dozen of characteristics.
Nota: in our opinion, the major problem is the catch on the back of the medal. It can’t be used to confirm if a Leistungsrune is good or not.

We will start with a first characteristic, the points of the sun wheel.
We apologize about the various quality and size of the pictures we used. For now, we only compiled raw data, we will try to have the help of the various owners in the future. We want to thanks all the people that posted their Leistungsrune, and Patrick W who kindly replied to us.

You will find in the two first pictures the points of 20 Leistungsrunen (8 in silver, 12 in bronze) that are in our opinion confirmed as real ones.





Then you will find period pictures of the Leistungsrunen taken from issues of “De SS Man” [March 4, 1944 – silver and bronze ones, same picture of the silver one on the “Aufbruch” issue 8, 1944 – dutch edition] and “Devenir” [issue 2, February 1944 – bronze one] (you can check the various replies and topics we did on those SS newspapers).





Finally, we present you the pictures taken from the “Patrick W”, “Gladkov” and “Tarnmilitaria” medals.



It is quite obvious that the shape of the point is different. And we don’t believe in the existence of such radical differences (even more for a medal said to be made by one company, with less than 1300 medals awarded…). We don’t see the deal to have such different casting for the sun wheel. May the three Leistungsrunen (“Patrick W”, Gladkov” and “Tarnmilitaria” may be over cast copies?

We will continue to propose the other characteristics if you want.

I think that we must work on the Leistungsrune before claiming anything of the cello paper or any other sandwich bag…
If wishes were horses, then beggars might ride.

Loïc & Vincent

Nice to put them all together. Note you have two makers/types in the first two photo groups and both appear in period photo's. The two attributed to me in your photos are samples of the two known original types for example.

The last group of three of the type that started this thread don't match any period pictures shown. I'm not aware of this type in any period picture that shows any detail. From my personal observations these are relatively new in the collecting world, they don't appear in old collections, books or period images. Of course if there is any new information that supports these it would be interesting to see.

[Lasse L]

From me.

Correct! The information about his award and some personalia comes from Ludwig, and additional information is available in some old dusty police documents in Sweden. If only someone would write a book with more photos and informationa about his service in the SS...

[jules61]

Catch.

Hi Gents!
How have to be the catch?
Only these wide catch is present over the originals?
Thanks!
Gian.

18410_b.jpg

[Steve T]

Hi Gents!
How have to be the catch?
Only these wide catch is present over the originals?
Thanks!
Gian.

[ATTACH]2690790[/ATTACH]

No, this is not the only catch. There is also a thinner one which is seen on the thinner sunwheel design badges as per the badges shown in the period pictures from newspapers above and badges labelled 5 and 6 above.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

please notice that the Von Morenberg is a confirmed fake, our apologies for the error. At the time we didn't had the back of the medal, but the point of the sun Wheel is not good either.
We removed it from our "original" listing, and moved it to the "high-end fakes" serie.

Steve T is right about the "two variants" and the different catch.
In our opinion, the catch is not a good part that can be used to proof if a GL is good or right.
A good GL can have its catch broken, and a "new" one added to it.
Again it seemed that the last generation of fakes are trying to add a few "good looking" parts (like similar catch), even when the sun Wheel and the runes are not good (at all).

The sun Wheel and the runes are more easy to study.

Close study shows that the original two variants have a lot of very interesting details that are useful to say that without a doubt a sun Wheel / runes are OK or not.

See You

Vince

[wreckdiver]

Hi Steve,

Iam new on the forum. About the leistungsrune were the fake silver ones also made in zinc with a silver layer? The 4 pins to attache the runes are they all on every badge the same in diameter?
Cheers,

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

yes, and if you are talking of the HH 68 Lot 6327, this is a good one.

About the pins, i think that they have the same diameter on every available variant (casual ones), but the length may be different (some are longer than other on some badges).

Pins are not a good way to see if a SS-GL is good or bad.
Some original badges may have "new" pins due to broken ones.

Many other details are far more important.
If you have some doubts about an SS-GL, you can post it on the WAF. Many "new" fakes are fooling people since a few years...

See You

Vince

[Military]

Gaston,

Will you book be ready/ Looking forward to it soon.

Regards,
Mil

[Longshot841]

Excellent info in this thread as well as some great photos

Has the book been published? Is Patrick's badge authentic?

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

Gaston's book still have to be published.

Patrick's GL is a fake (and not even a Niemann type which is most dangerous one which flooded the 00's), the ends of the branchs of the sunwheel are cut short.

See You

Vince

[Longshot841]

Hi,

Gaston's book still have to be published.

Patrick's GL is a fake (and not even a Niemann type which is most dangerous one which flooded the 00's), the ends of the branchs of the sunwheel are cut short.

See You

Vince

Great, thanks Vince