Third Party Press

What is considered to be rare in 3R collecting?

You are very welcome! :happy0180:

I agree with you, an EKII is a bravery medal that wasn't awarded liberally. Major Erich Hartmann as example had in 1943 already 100 combat missions and was shooting down 7 aircraft, at this time he "just" had the EKII. In the end of October 1943 he had already his 148 aerial victory and finally got awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
On the subject in 1945 they got the EKII without extraordinary bravery: The 12-year-old Alfred Czech rescued 12 wounded German soldiers under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire in the area Oppeln and later he got wounded. He got awarded the EKII and the Wound Badge in Black. In the city where I live was fighting a 17 year old boy against the British army. With a machine gun he stopped the British soldiers for about half an hour until he ran out of ammo. A British tank was driving on a mine and two further tanks he destroyed in close-combat, then he got wounded. The boy didn't got a award. I don't want to say there are no other examples, but you didn't got awarded the EKII easily.


1063. Loss of war awards.

Since the beginning of the war these war awards got lost due to improper storage and transportation:

87 Iron Cross 2nd. Class,
529 Iron Cross 1st. Class,
276 War Merit Cross Second Class with Swords.

All research has so far not led to finding the lost awards.

The awards are expected to be in the hands of unauthorized persons. It is therefore to be expected that more awards will be illegitimate carried.

It is necessary to strictly supervise the awards and the wearing of awards of every kind, of individual soldier.

For this purpose, the registration of the successful awarding of awards in the Soldbuch, page 22, must be carried out immediately by all departments, troop parts and units of the army.

(See also H. V. Bl. Part B No. 395.)

O. K. H., October 8, 1940
- 2657/40 - P 2 (IV).


There are more similar notice of loss in 1941, but I will continue with something different, because the next tranlation is more important for this thread.
 
Great information and I agree most of the war medals for sale now are fakes. How many you see for sale now almost seems like the German high command were giving these out by the bucket loads too the soldiers in the field. Throwing them out like candy at a parade.

But maybe there's a cave somewhere that has crates of them, stuffed with straw, that old walther hasn't found yet!

Even the infantry assault badge has been heavily faked. Another badge that is not easily given out. I believe the American comparison of this medal today would be the combat infantrymans badge. A badge that is not easily attainable in our military.
 
Last edited:
I agree with you Jordan and here we get even flooded with faked awards like rather cheap War Merit Cross Second Class with Swords or Eastern Front Medal. Hambone said it very well, the fakes get greater in number and quality. The faker also use a trick and bury their artificially aged awards in former combat areas, therewith normal collectors with a metal detector find them. In this way they want to legitimatise their fakes as original wartime variants.


1157. Replacement of damaged or lost Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Below is an excerpt of an order issued by the Minister of State and Chief of the Präsidialkanzlei of the Führer and Chancellor:

"The Minister of State
and Chief of the Präsidialkanzlei .... Berlin, October 22, 1941.
of the Führer and Chancellor
RP. O. 16214/41

I have prohibited the sale of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, Oak Leaves and Oak Leaves with Swords of the Iron Cross in public store. The manufacturers are directly informed. I would be grateful if the Knight's Cross holders were to be informed in a suitable manner of the prohibition of sale and given to them to request compensation for loss or damage to their Knight's Crosses from the Präsidialkanzlei without compensation.

Signed​

O. K. W., October 28, 1941
29c 16 WZ (III b).
8262/41


Additions of the O. K. H. :

In collective print "Medals and Awards" is to be added as handwritten number 5 under the "Guidelines for the awarding of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross" on page 42:

5. Lost or damaged Knight's Crosses are replaced by the Präsidialkanzlei of the Führer, Berlin, Voßstraße 4, free of charge.

O. K. H., November 18, 1941
29a PA (Z) V/Vd.
5678/41


You could buy as example the Knight's Crosses in the public store until October 1941, the Knight's Cross holders just had to show a document which prove the legitimate interest. In this way, a few Knight's Crosses have certainly come into the hands of collectors, who already existed at that time. In addition there existed a overstock, but I think this was not sooo big.

In my opinion that doesn't explain the huge number of original mint Knight's Crosses in the present time. Steinhauer & Lück produced post 1945 and certainly other manufacturers still had their original templates too. After 1945 Allied veterans wanted souvenirs and later German soldiers replaced their lost pieces, a lot of customers to earn money.

Some hoard exist like the ground relics from Potsdam many years ago, or the ground relics from Rudolf Wächtler & Lange in Mittweida (I had about 20 Iron Crosses 1st Class from there and I have attached one of them). But it seems the hoard with mint or nearly mint awards never dry up...

Regards,
Stephan
 

Attachments

  • Iron Cross.jpg
    Iron Cross.jpg
    107.7 KB · Views: 32
This discussion reminds me of this image.

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • medals.jpg
    medals.jpg
    264.9 KB · Views: 104
There can be no doubt that mounds of German awards, medals, etc., were manufactured and never awarded. Those became trinkets for the surplus market after the war. However, all of these, including the lowly "driver's specialty badge", are reproduced. Is every German medal or badge sold today a fake? Of course not. Are a large number of them sold today fake? Of course. I go with the "80% Rule" on German WW2 medals and awards, the same "80% Rule" I apply to "camo helmets", which is optimistic there. Assume it a fake and let it prove it isn't. Philly Cat is not "provenance".
 
8x57IS said:
.....The faker also use a trick and bury their artificially aged awards in former combat areas, therewith normal collectors with a metal detector find them. In this way they want to legitimatise their fakes as original wartime variants.
Click to expand...
Only a few months ago on my forum, did a German guy upload images of a Parteiabzeichen he had found whilst out with his detector.... great stuff, even cleaned it up to show. Unfortunately I immediately recognoized it as a cheap modern Eastern European fake! :facepalm:
This particular fake is already outed as such and looked at in detail in a 2013 book, so maybe that`s the reason, a way for "someone" to delegitimize me, my work? or just a way to make modern crap suddenly become "a maybe item". After all, to many people a ground dug item means instant authentication.- In fact, as Craig Gottlieb would say, "It`s a self-authenticating item" :laugh:
gd-1.jpggd2.JPGgd3.JPG
gd4.JPGgd5.JPGgd6.jpg
 
Did you really bring up old Craig from Pawn stars! That guy can find it anything German military related! Hey he found that Nazi concentration camp doctor's passport to Argentina! You know the one the guy they called the angel of Death. He is the format expert in this field just ask him!

And I'm sure I'll be seeing him next month at the SOS show on his Segway.
 
Nice picture Mfarb.
:thumbsup:
I think this was the fate of a lot of overstocks in May 1945, most of these medals just ended up on the scrapheap instead of being moved to barns in Bavaria.




The big problem is, like Stephan already wrote, that companies like Steinhauer & Lück kept on producing after the war and there thus is no way to tell the difference between a wartime made and issued piece and one produced for the collectors market after 1945.
 
You guys are way too mean too poor Craig. One of the best experts in this field just ask him! Most likely you will get alot of RA RA from him and I have been doing this for many years!

Just watch out for that Segway he's on!

gott dong.jpg
 
I would think that a lot of TR awards would have been produced after the war by original manufactures, on original tooling with original materials as suveneers for occupying GI’s. These in a sense would be original period items and indistinguishable today from a war time produced one. One more reason I love to look at medals and awards, but won’t collect them.
 
Peter U said:
Their certainly are hoards, in my field of collecting they tend to come from archive sources.
For example the KL Sachsenhausen Wehrpaßer from the Stasi archives or the ID booklets from the MIA pilots that were looted from the Freiburg archive.
But these are documented hoards, the thief and dealers that sold the MIA pilots documents were caught and came before a judge in Germany.
The dangerous hoards are the undocument ones that come with a Philly Cat type of provenance story and don't seem to stop producing.

PS. On the KL Sachsenhausen WP's the hoard has a negative influence on the price, they are the cheapest KL ID booklets you can buy, simply because they are far from rare and you come across them rather often, especially if you compare them to similar WP's from other KL's.
Click to expand...

Interesting thread .....

There was a hoard find of Deutscher Volkssturm Soldbuch a few years ago from a unit in Gau 21, Breslau if I recall correctly. They were all in the same excellent condition with minimal entries and without photo. I also remember there was some rumbling that they were in fact stolen but I do not recall all of the details.
 
Slash said:
Interesting thread .....

There was a hoard find of Deutscher Volkssturm Soldbuch a few years ago from a unit in Gau 21, Breslau if I recall correctly. They were all in the same excellent condition with minimal entries and without photo. I also remember there was some rumbling that they were in fact stolen but I do not recall all of the details.
Click to expand...
All fake, up until recently, I used to send orders out wrapped in huge uncut sheets of "the covers" that were used for them. Like the uncut banknote sheets, I had a few uncut Volksturm book cover sheets. :laugh: will try and find images when I find the time.

Paper is the easiest thing to fake. I exposed fake paper badges a while ago in a collectors mag, and have exposed fake NSDAP ID booklets/citations as well on YouTube.

Don`t think "faking" is only reserved for metal, fake paper has been around since 1945. And continues to this day. Even modern laser jet printed rubbish is sold as genuine - and fools even dealers like Weitze, eMedals etc etc....
 
mauser202 said:
I would think that a lot of TR awards would have been produced after the war by original manufactures, on original tooling with original materials as suveneers for occupying GI’s. These in a sense would be original period items and indistinguishable today from a war time produced one. One more reason I love to look at medals and awards, but won’t collect them.
Click to expand...

No, this is wrong. I will elaborate later today, 4:30am here and I really need to get to bed.
 
Understanding exactly what it takes to produce medals and the like is helpful when taking this into consideration.
You can`t just make something from A-Z on your own, unless you are casting it of course. A medal factory requires the input and knowledge of many specialists, tooling, equipment, procedures.
Indeed, a whole workshop floor, with individual rooms for the various stages of production.
Now after the war, Germany was going through the denazification process, which took many years. The swastika was forbidden, and just being a NSDAP member got you into hassle and restricted daily life in many instances. Producing “Nazi” items, was forbidden.
There were, basically, no Medal factories that could just resume business as usual after 1945. A few like Deschler, who were the first to be allowed to produce for the Allies in June 1945 (documented) and a few others, yes, but the staff had either all died, or were misplaced. So just getting a factory into “working shape” again, took time, and as we know, materials were not all of a sudden freely available again from June 1945. Everything had to be built up again, and that took time.
In order to suggest that original factories started producing the exact same items for the GI`s, simply because they may have had some of the original tooling, parts, dies, you are assuming that it was possible to acquire a factory within Germany or Austria, with skilled workers, who all had no problem producing items that were all forbidden. And that a scheme like this would have been allowed under Allied occupation. That was certainly not the case at all. Maybe later, but not immediately after the war.
There was also no time to focus on “starting the Third Reich” again, and simply “resuming business as before.” People were starving, there were no jobs, there was no money, and the very few Medal factories – more like small rooms in bombed out original factories as we know from Deschler and how they restarted – had to make a living! And they did that by producing normal required metal items of and for that immediate post-war period, not Third Reich items that they would or could not have been paid for.
These “trinkets” were viewed as war booty, to be had, taken, and not as a business to cater for soldiers who were too lazy to simply take what they wanted, and instead go into a shop and order a few items to take home.
Yes GI`s wanted war booty, but there was no war booty business until long after the war. A decade at least when we look at the first adverts appearing in magazines overseas, and even then, only a very limited amount of stock was offered – mostly still surplus gear, and not items being made to order.
The next point often overlooked, are the actual items.
Third Reich items were made under guarantee. If the product was not up to scratch, or broke, or was inferior, the maker had to guarantee a free replacement. These items were all made to specifications, to be worn – for a purpose. That is why they are made as they were, with so many steps involved in the production, to reach a high-end product that they could be proud of, that someone could wear!
A fake, no matter if it is a cast fake or a Rudolf Souval fake made on period tooling, is not for wear, there is no guarantee attached to it, once the faker passes it on, he has no liability. The only purpose of a fake, or a non-original item produced for collectors, is to fool the buyer into thinking it is original. The steps involved in producing a fake, regardless if Godet is making the fake or me in my basement, are not the same. A few may be the same if we are going to suggest period makers made them on period dies, or reduced new dies from period Galvano`s etc… but the stages of correct production, and correct finishing, are not going to be the same.
And why would they be the same? The item is not for wear, or use, or subject to inspection, it can just be made to fool, to look like a genuine. When you accept this, and try and find these “missed out stages” in the fakes, you will always find them, time and time again. (I have, and published these in the Exposing Fake Militaria book”

I am not saying that Steinhauer und Lück (and others) did not reproduce things, but if they did, they certainly did not reproduce them the same way as they made them during the Third Reich, simply because of the end product and it`s intended use.
Today is different, especially with small forger’s who do nothing else except try to fake high end stuff, and in some cases I am sure they will have come close, but talking only about the idea that after 1945 those who were making and had dies still, just resumed business, is, in my opinion, just not true. And as I have mentioned, also not possible directly after the war for many reasons.
 
I want to echo what Micro Jo said - and period documents I've seen that back that up. The J.P. Sauer factory was captured by the US after the war. Directly after the end of fighting in the area, the factory managers requested permission from the Allied commission in charge of the area to be allowed to begin production of sporting shotguns for US soldiers in the area. The factories were off limits to the workers - some staff were allowed in to prevent loss and maintain equipment, but not operate it. From what I saw all of these request were denied, even a special request from a higher ranking US Officer wanting one of these guns. Of course, guns and medals are different things, but the point is these factories that produced items for the 3R were not just left to do as they pleased, and I can bet that the manufacture of Nazi medals was not something the occupation armies were going to allow.
 
Good point MJ.



I think by now the reproduction industry has produced almost as many, if not more, medals and badges then the wartime manufacturers did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Military Rifle Journal
Back
Top