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Hi, in need of some help and hoping to get some honest genuine answers. When my grand father passed away I received a suitcase full of WWII German artifacts (on reflection I suspect he left this to me due to my own military career)... the above photographed HJ badge just being one (leather belt, Kriegsmarine foraging cap, heer wehrpas, several copies of Die Kriegsmarine, Kriegsmarine uniform buttons but to name a few items) of the items. I know nothing about this item but if its anything like the others then I believe it to be very genuine. All I can say is that it appears to be made from an alloy, possible aluminium, paint work look good and has M1/25 along with RZM marked on rear. I can email the photographs if required for closer inspection.

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Hi all those who have viewed this thread, I'm looking for some knowledge on this item, i.e. is it fake or is it real, who made it, when it was made, where it was made, what does RZM mean, what do the numbers mean etc etc... I would think someone here would be able to provide this information or point me to someone who knows about such things?
 
Hi,

Hold your mouse pointer over RZM for the full term :thumb: Painted HJ membership badges appeared late-war so they are legitimate items. Give it a little time and I'm sure that the thread will be seen by the guys who can help further.
 
Hi after some research and testing in the lab I have discovered that the badge is made from good quality zinc rather than an alloy zinc of the late war period, this said the piece is post 1942 but how far after this date is difficult to ascertain. The M1/25 was registered to Rudolf Reiling of Pforzheim... the only thing now is to discover a valuation, can someone help with this information.
 
and testing in the lab
Hello and welcome to the Forum. The Lab?:noidea:
You need to understand how these items were made. Testing a piece like this will and can never lead to anything. I dont know what you mean by Lab testing, but the quality of the metal will have absoluetly nothing to do with it being made in 1901, 1941 or 1991.
Example: We know that badges prior to 1940 (not from 1942 on) were made from MESSING, not bronze, not copper, and not Tombak. Period articles tell us this, BUT... makers and sub-contractors used what they had, this is why we find them made in Iron as well, and who knows if they all used Messing, maybe some cut corners and used Tombak. They cut corners with the Iron cross and used Messing for the core, even after 1940 some makers still used other metals for the iron cross. So even if there was a super machine to stick each badge into, and press PRINTOUT, we would still not be able to determine anything from the results, nothing concrete anyway.

I dont know how you reached the opinion that late war made zinc items are supposed to be of a higher quality metal? in any case its nonsense, and only an opinion that can also not be used to support any conclusion.

As for the maker, just because the number M1/xyz is on the back, is no guarantee that they made it, the time period this was made, and especially the maker, point towards a M2 or sub-contractor. It also plays no part in the value of the piece as well, if it were an early hoffstätter or Ges. Gesch HJ messing badge from 1933 then yes, but these war produced versions are valued as what they are, and the MM plays no important role.

They are not as common as the Messing enameled versions obviously, but less sought after. The European market prices for these seem to range between €30-€50 in the US around $50-70.- depending who is selling them.

You did say you wanted honest and genuine answers :biggrin1:
 
Hi, its very clear how little you know about carbon dating... and this is my line of work, hence in the lab, I feel your attempting to protect your amateur detective work which I will assume is "book" based.
 
You aren't under attack 01drf.

In fairness you didn't say anything about carbon-dating in your initial thrust. Indeed, you didn't mention any lab work at all. You simply said that you had looked at the metal and that the paint looked 'good'.

Could you go into more detail on how you arrived at your ostensibly very precise dating?

Going back to your point on the metal used for your badge: as Metallwarenfabrik points out, you would need access to period records to establish which manufacturer used which metal and when during the period in order to say what you did about the manufacture date for your badge. You seem certain of your findings which leads me to believe that you have such period records?

Your findings and the way in which you posed your initial question are sounding extremely odd at the moment...
 
Hi, its very clear how little you know about carbon dating... and this is my line of work, hence in the lab, I feel your attempting to protect your amateur detective work which I will assume is "book" based.
Jaysus....... how the flipping hell do i answer this one:noidea: simple, for the sake of all the good folk here, i dont.
:yo: Top of the mornin`to ya Sire.
 
I should stay out of this one , HOWEVER ; with the members involved ... "PLEASE" keep personal "JABS" at each other out of OPEN FORUM .
If you have the need to debate an issue and "sling mud" at each other , please leave the Jabs in a personal message .
 
well said joe, i like these painted zinc badges though they are not popular as the enamel ones and therefore dont demand the same money but still very nice
 
With respect chaps, 01drf is claiming to have dated his badge using carbon-dating. I think that his position is worthy of discussion but his silence is speaking volumes at the moment. I hope that he will return to discuss the matter.
 
Hi, its very clear how little you know about carbon dating...

As far as I know, carbon dating is only possible on organic materials. Paint might be organic, but you would have to scrape some of the paint off the badge to test it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
I have an earlier HJ pin marked RZM No 25, can't see the pics posted here as I haven't posted often enough, would like to aquire a late war one myself, good score.
 
Hi,

I had one of those too. Mine was marked 'No 34'.

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I have an earlier HJ pin marked RZM № 25, can't see the pics posted here as I have'nt posted often enough, would like to aquire a late war one myself, good score.
I like the late 1933 to emid 1935 transitional markings, sometimes you will find the berechtigungsschein nummer prefixed with N°, N, Nr or not at all. It was entirely a personal interpretation, or in the case of yours marked N° 25, the interpretation of the Sub-contractor in Pforzheim who made this badge. (Around this era, especially with HJ and NSDAP membership badges, a great deal of them were being made by sub-contractors, or metallabzeichen hilfsbetriebe. (later these had M2 prefixed to their license numbers) In the case of yours marked N°25 i have already been able to prove that they used the same sub-contractor as a few other licensed makers in that same town (and outside) like Foerster & Barth, Ferdinand Wagner, Otto Schickle, the unknown maker N° 26 and Richard Conrad to name but a few.
The chances that this badge marked N°25. was made by them are zero, if you hunt around and can find other HJ membership badges marked N°77 or N°75 you will find when you compare them that they were made using the identical front die, and only the makers marks change.
As confusing as this sounds, it is actually very easy to understand once properly explained, i will be including a rather large chapter on this in my book. And after readiong it, you will have no other option but to agree that, just because it says STEINHAUER und LÜCK (or any other maker) is no guarantee that they actually made it.

Hi,
I had one of those too. Mine was marked 'No 34'.
Garry, when i wrote about the sub-contractors in Pforzheim, i assumed that it would stop at that town, especially looking at the early RZMmtb and finding that around the same time that a few makers who had used these sub-contractors in Pforzheim had their Licenses revoked, two of the M2 makers, or Hilfsbetriebe also lost their license, namely M2/1 and M2/2... so i had assumed that this would be a dead end and not apply to other eras. When i started to get the book together, and grouping together all older files etc, i stumbled on, which i had always had yet somehow never saw, the final proof that connects even makers like this one of yours, who as we know, Karl Wurster was a prominent and specialzed small badge maker... with another prominent badge maker, who was so far away from Wurster (and even more prominent :) that assuming that one of the other used the services of each other is not reasonbale, especially taking the M2 makers into consideration. So i can also prove that Wurster, or M1/34 used a sub-contractor, at least during this period :) As well as making the same connection after 1938 with Austrian as well as Sudetenland makers :)


Yes, I was also thinking about the paint for carbon dating.
I hope 01drf will let us know what he did and how he did it.
It seems he is not around at the moment.
Not important, History wins hands down over any stupid tests (that cant be done on an item like this anyway-he would have done best to read what i wrote in my first reply then he would have seen this) a response from this user is not nessesary, and not welcome on my part unless it starts with an opolgy for his insulting remarks towards me in his second post, regarding my research being amature-ish and comming from some book. If this new poster would have taken the time to read any of the articles i have posted on this forum then he would soon have realized that this is not the case, and the very last thing on gods planet that i would do, would be to blindly quote from some stupid post war book, writen by a non-german speaker with glue-for-brains.
 
Excellent information Jo. Experience tells us that users like 01drf rarely return to threads like this one. He will have received notifications for every reply on this thread but he has chosen to ignore them all. We are left with no other option than to assume that he hasn't got a clue, hasn't got a lab coat never mind a laboratory and is generally full of hot air. Quite what his motives were we'll never know but it seems to me that he was here for a fight.
 
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