Arbeiterjugend with Arbeiterjugend badge

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I picked this up today at a flea market for $30. My books don't have good enough picks to dicern if this is genuine. Your thoughts please. Thanks.

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Those threads were helpful, thank you. Because no of the other posts had RZM marked backs i'm leaning toward "COPY"
 
OK. i've tried to to study this a bit more and confess i'm more confussed than ever about it. Lot's of conflicting inromation on the net about what to look for on this badge. If you care to school me on this i'm willing to get schooled. To it's merit the badge has the correct number of rays and the swastika seems to be at the correct position on the horizon. The enamel is translucient and the colors seem straight. No defects in the enamel like bubbles or overflow, etc. The badge looks silver washed, as it should, but I can't be sure of the base metal. It should be tomback??? or were some of these brass??? I first thought the RZM mark was a giveaway to fake but some are telling me that late badges 1934-35 fall into the RZM system. My books only have a representative photo and a brief description. I need to find a better reference with more info on what to look for. Any recommendations? Thanks
 
Hello, look ONLY at the RZM M1/ license, it was handed back by this particular maker 3 months before the M1/ system was first mentioned. It is therefore an impossibility that the number M1/4 is found on any genuine badges post April 1935.
The only RZM code and numbers you will find on these are in the transitional form, made during the early to mid part of 1935.
 
the swastika seems to be at the correct position on the horizon.
This has also no bearing on the badges authenticity, have a look around this forum and you will see others where the swastika is almost hidden, or showing almost completely.
The base metal should be TOMBAK ? it should be messing for this era, but we dont know how many badges makers were using messing, and who was using other inferior metals, or lower class messing metals, so to say that it "should" be this or that metal also has no bearing on reality, or this badge.


This particular reverse points towards it maker in the UK in the mid 1970s, an is found on many fakes and indeed fantasy badges like the SS-Zivilabzeichen etc....
 
Thank you so much for that information. That was more helpful than trudging though the conflicting nformation on the net. No one ever mentioned the license date of the maker before now.
 
Hi Again, sorry but this part...

To it's merit the badge has the correct number of rays

also has no bearing on the authenticity, or is any "merit" at all....there are original s known using 15,17,20,21,23, rays etc.... just hunt around this forum for examples. I listed a RZM transitional period marked one a while ago, showing more than usual of the swastika, as well as many more than the "accepted" 19 rays :) HERE
 
Thank you so much for that information. That was more helpful than trudging though the conflicting nformation on the net. No one ever mentioned the license date of the maker before now.

No Worries, the reason for this is that History is scary, and usually proves what everyone knows, but wont say it coz they all own one :) People dont like to FIRST use history, small details like this about the license, but would rather talk about the number of sun rays and all the things that you mentioned you found on the net, and leave History out of the conversation altogether. We can, and MUST, all have opinions, but when History shows us facts, we really should accept them, unless we can prove them wrong, in that case, it would be more than just "our opinion" but something serious... like..suggesting that "our opinion" was superior over Period, documented facts. Sometimes it could be, but it would need to be based on History as well, and not just what other say of suggest.

The ONLY time, ever, that you will ever find this particular Makers code on a small badge, will be a badge that was made BEFORE January 1935, and the code will either Be the normal for that period, i.e: prefixed with a Nr, N°, N or not at all. There is also the chance that it MAY be prefixed with MA/ but that would be slim, seeing as no period small badges are known using this marking system, which ran parallel to the Nr. prefixing system from late 1933 to mid 1935.
Here, any badge by Karl Gutenkunst will look like this, with simply the number 4. The inclusion of the prefix M1/4 is an immediate clue that the badge is a Fake, no exceptions!! To be blunt, there never was, the number M1/4 at all. Evenm though all the lists will tell you there was, there was not.

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The ONLY time, ever, that you will ever find this particular Makers code on a small badge, will be a badge that was made BEFORE January 1935,
What was meant here, was that Gutenkunst handed their number MA/4 back on the 10th January, so this means that THEY did not need it, and certainly would not have made official badges after this period. If the number was Forcefully withdrawn, say in April 1935 when the M1/ code was to be used, then we might be able to argue that they still made a few with the M1/4 number because they either did not know they lost their license, or produced illegally as was certainly the case with other makers, but in this case, the very first time any M1/ code was shown to makers was on the 9th March 1935, and two weeks later they were told to mark metal insignia with it. And as we know, Gutenkunst did not want his MA/4 license anymore, so he did not have, or ever had, a M1/4 license.

His license lost its validity from 10 January 1935 and was documented as being number MA/4. (and not M1/4)
 
I (and i'll bet many new forum members) truely appreciate this information. Like you mentioned, most people point to the design details to determine if genuine and forego the extra research to discover the code details are fictitous. This is more detailed information than I can find in any of my $130 reference books. Thanks so much. PS - In the junk it goes drawer with the others :/
 
I (and i'll bet many new forum members) truely appreciate this information. Like you mentioned, most people point to the design details to determine if genuine and forego the extra research to discover the code details are fictitous. This is more detailed information than I can find in any of my $130 reference books. Thanks so much. PS - In the junk it goes drawer with the others :/
 
I think Wim Saris (also a member here) showed me an early 1980s catalog from a UK forger of small badges, where these are pictured, both with the duff M1/4 and M1/129 numbers.. there are a few others as well that this guy used with the same reverse design, M1/73. But that 80s catalog was not the first time these turned up on the market, that was before, around the end of the 1960s with the big enamel badge boom, both from US and UK forgers, as well as a few German names. Most of the German forgers are dead now, so i wont bother mentioning them, but they are in the same ranks as the famous US forgers, who wrote reference books, and Appeared to help the collector, when all they were doing was creating a marketplace for their post war rubbish. This still goes on to this very day, with certain UK authors of militaria books filling them with rubbish to help them sell their fakes and fantasy items.

You should first try and "read" the item, and see if what it is telling you, i.e; design, date of introduction, reverse markings etc... actually have anything to do with the period they are claiming to come from, only after the innitial inspection tells you that whatever it is, does in fact show the correct markings and is representative of the actual period it is pretending to come from, then look at other aspects if unsure. Usually, there will be 100 opinions for something, which could actually be dismissed out of hand, like these, just by using actual, simple facts, instead of trying to judge certain aspects to reach either a yay or nay.
 
In the junk it goes drawer with the others :/
You could try and sell it to a Dealer, they might buy it, seeing as they have no problem listing these exact badges.. the bottom one was for sale on Helmut Weitzes website a while ago, as Original of course. :bored:

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