SS stickpin opinions

[Capt. R]

Conclusions of fact are all you can provide. I am a criminal trial attorney. If you were to come to court as an expert witness to back up your position, on cross examination I would rip you apart with your lack of evidence. Too bad that will not happen. It would be so easy. I would cut you a new one.

Gary, this Wraith guy never posts any photos and as such his opinion is worth very little. You should see his futile attempts to double-talk evidence on his horribly mis-spelled tirades on my own thread about brooches. And you're correct: he would fold in court under cross.

[JoeW]

I seriously doubt that any of these civil badges were made once the war started in 1939. These of course were for the Alegeime SS, not the Waffen SS. As a civil organization production of these stickpins would have certainly ceased after 1940 at the latest.
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Gary, there is conflicting evidence concerning your statement about duration of production of the SS-ZA. Documentation in the NARA indicate that the SS-Hauptamt ordered the proposal lists for the SS-ZA discontinued in October 1939 until the end of hostilities. Moreover, in December 1939 SS-HA commander Berger reported to Himmler the supplies of silver remaining for the SS and it was decided to suspend production requests of replacemnet SS-ZA at the Gahr factory.

Contrary documentation is found in an August 1943 decree in the Befehlsblatt d. SIPO und SD that indicated a limited number of SS-ZAs would be available for wounded SS-members returning from service in the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht. In addition, personal examination of many SS-officer files reveal post-1939 awards of the SS-ZA that more than often occured under peculiar circumstances such as the reissuance of the ZA of a deceased member.

Such seemingly conflicting evidence serves to confound researchers attempting to put items in our collections in historical perspective.

While technically, the October 1939 order to cease receiving requests for the SS-ZA occcurred before the creation of the Waffen-SS, there is evidence the ZA could be received by members of the other two branches of the SS: the SS-Vt and the SS-TV. Pre-war Truppenausweis of the SS-VT and Dienstausweis of the SS-VT shown shown in reference books were printed with a line to record the owner's SS-ZA number.

As to the question of raised or pressed maker's marks on the reverse of the SS-ZA, I am afraid I can offer no substantive evidence. To me it is a purely subjective opinion as the authenticity of one or both, as I know of no documentation concerning the manufacturing by Hoffstätter. The collector market will decide.