I guess I’m missing what exactly is being hinted at? That someone is continuously producing commonly accepted EK2’s in a champagne-ruin type scheme? Probably not worth it for an $80 medal...
This are the figures of actual German army bravery medals awarded during WW2:
- KC: 7161
- GC in Gold: +/- 26.000
- Honour roll clasp: 4556
The names of owners of these medals are listed and known.
For the EK we can only work with estimates but the numbers should be like less then 200.000 EKI's and less then 2.000.000 EKII, this are figures of an army in which 18.2 million men served.
Note that most of the men that received these bravery medals fought exclusively on the Eastern front and didn't come in to contact with souvenir hunting GI's, so there medals could never have been American war trophies that were discovered in garage sales in the US.
The problem is that there aren't enough authentic WW2 period issued medal that survived the war to supply the demand for all the collectors world wide but dealers solved this problem with finding new overstocks again and again.
These illustrious overstocks have been hitting the market for a very long time and they are kind of magical or very huge because they never seem to stop giving.
My estimated guess is that more then 80% of what you see of German WW2 medals is post war made, I have the feeling that original templates have survived and were used post war.
The best example to proof my point is the KC ribbon.
How many KC's mint in a box with a piece of ribbon have you seen compared to a worn ribbon?
- Personally I have seen a handful of KC's with a worn ribbon but I have seen dozens of KC's in boxes.
Overstock KC's? They had awarded 7000 upon the war end in May 1945, were they expecting another 7000 would be awarded in 1946 if they war had continued a year longer?
The numbers of KC's that have been sold to collectors doesn't make any sense, not even if you believe KC holders had more then one KC.
One of the facts of a real hoard is that it dries up relatively fast.
For example when the looted MIA pilots ID booklets hit the market in the 1990's every militaria dealer had a bunch of them.
Now you see them once in a while and there are years I haven't seen any and the once I have seen are from a collector that sells something from his collection.
And the same can be said of the KL-Sachsenhausen WP's and Waffen SS artillery personel files.
The medals and badges overstock hoards never dry up.
