Hitler Youth achievement badges (Leistungsabzeichen) marked with an S

Well its one thing to look at extremely magnified pictures and say its of bad quality but when I look at mine in hand it don't come of as of bad or inferior quality.

So with that said I dont think any quality controll would have pulled the plug on this badge.
Here it is with the items I got from the seller when zoomed out it looks perfectly fine IMO

Thanks

Bjorn

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With respect Bjorn, I have seen a number of these badges that looked shoddy in hand so you don't always need to get up close with them. If you are happy that's perfectly okay but I think that there are many legitimate reasons for thinking that these badges are not the genuine article. The 'S', the quality, the construction, the time-frame, the numbering, the fact that hundreds of thousands of the silver level were made after yours and to a higher level of quality but only a few of your type survive. And then of course there is the analysis by Metallwarenfabrik that I think needs to be taken seriously. As I say though, it can't yet be stated conclusively that all 'S' badges are bogus but my opinion is that the weight of evidence certainly seems to suggest that they might be. If you are happy with the badge that's good but I'm sure that you will accommodate those who aren't so sure.
 
No problem at all, I respect all your opinions I have no problem discussing this badge and as a matter of fact I am also leaning in the direction of this being a reproduction due to the bad quality.

Its just strange that it appeared in this veteran lot, that basically is the only reason that my initial thoughts and I am still not totally convinced that it without a doubt is a reproduction.

Bjorn
 
That's right Bjorn. All we can do as collectors is to collate the available information and always be on the lookout for new information to explain what we see and to consolidate and confirm what we know to be true. We see it too often on forums where people say 'good badge', 'bad badge' but rarely do they qualify what they say. Totally unhelpful and it's only by getting stuck into a discussion that we can learn from each other. That's why I like niche forums like ours. On the bigger forums people are more anonymous and good discussions often get pushed down the listing too quickly.
 
This Thread is brilliant.

Thanks all for your input.

As we say in Spain, it is not gold all that shine. Sometimes we trust firm where the pieces come from, but may be even the origin, the source what is really wrong.

We had here (and in the other Forum) a couple of HJ Veterans. We learnt a lot about them and we say many of the pieces from them. Everyone would say, that, ok as those pieces come from Veterans, they should be all original and period pieces, right?

But no, I remember that both of the Veterans had fakes that they just got well after May 1945. In fact, there is a Thread of an HJ veteran here who bought an HJ Knife (as his was lost) and it resulted in a fake knife. Other veteran had also a "blue" HJ Membership Badge.

If they give those items to a third person (maybe not a collector at all), what would they think? that they are originals. Right?

These are a couple of silly examples. But I find them good to have doubts about the real origin of the pieces.

The results given here are not 100% decisive. Ok, that is correct, but they show up many "more than orange" flags that make us thinking a little bit more serious about the originality of this piece. And sometimes, the origin, the source where we bought the knife, is not so consistent at all.

Best Regards

Antonio
 
This has been nice! I too have one of the "S" badges and I'm not certain of its authenticity or non-authenticity, but I have enjoyed the discussion without making it personal. Thanks to all and to Garry.
 
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Another, up for sale for £75.-

That "S" has been hand-stamped with some authority. (Possibly done by Olek-the-stamper, the brother of Vlad the impaler.)

Their two piece construction -with-razor-sharp-barbs-around-the-reverse-even-till-this-day- alone gives them away as not possibly being from the third Reich. (Once again, its not cupal, its not bonded-metal that has been stamped, its two different stamp-outs bonded post creation - an absurb suggestion to consider that any third reich manufacturer would even contemplate this way of creating awards, especially when we know that these makers, whos marks we find on these, did not produce these badges, like this - Nobody did.

The S is surely to distract from basic logic, and go hand-in-hand with Alice into the Land of what ifs, and possibly could be`s...

Solid, Genuine, Honest items, are not shrouded in any cloud of mystery, and present themselves as honest and genuine at face value.

What about the past few threads on fake HJ leistungsabzeichen, badges that i recently bought and gutted? Badges that although are made in 2010, still fool people only 2 years later... Now think about the old fakes, that these supposed veterans have been handing out for the past 5 decades, non bloody stop to all who have an ear for a yarn, or two. Its Marilyn Manson`s "Dope Show", this hobby is, and has been since 1946. We have not had the wool pulled over our eyes, it was there from the first day we all walked into this hobby, most collectors see no need to remove it though.

ps: even with these minute images, you can see that the face was cast in a cats litter tray.

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A really interesting thread, I sadly missed it until now.
Garry linked my M1/101 http://www.hj-research.com/forum/f24/achievement-badge-some-questions-1389/ in post #7.
It's right, the reverse side is sharp but the quality of the badge is really fine! I'm a little bid confused and I'm not 100% sure if it's a fake in fact. So I leave it in my collection and wait until some more informations came up - or maybe not. Maybe in some years we laugh about wasting so much original badges, I don't know? Or we laught because some of us were stupid enough for not believing in you! We'll see!
 
A really interesting thread, I sadly missed it until now.
Garry linked my M1/101 http://www.hj-research.com/forum/f24/achievement-badge-some-questions-1389/ in post #7.
It's right, the reverse side is sharp but the quality of the badge is really fine! I'm a little bid confused and I'm not 100% sure if it's a fake in fact. So I leave it in my collection and wait until some more informations came up - or maybe not. Maybe in some years we laugh about wasting so much original badges, I don't know? Or we laugh because some of us were stupid enough for not believing in you! We'll see!
I was also just reading your post, and although what you wrote is not quite accurate, its close enough to what i mean, namely that the badge is pretending to be stamped from Cupal, (on your thread you referred to the actual layer of sheet messing as being Cupal, and the aluminum part being separate, which is not correct, Cupal is what the name is for the finished product, after the two metals have been bonded by pressure. AFTER this, the cupal sheets and strips are used by makers to stamp out the whole award, and NOT what we are seeing here, which is, as you pointed out in 2009, is a badge-shape being stamped out from a sheet of messing, and an obverse badge shape being cast, or struck from aluminum, then both parts fixed together, and in most cases not properly fixed so that around the back the edges are razor sharp.

So thinking about it, or leaving it for 20 years wont change the fact that badges and awards were not made like this by any TR maker, where Cupal was used in the later years, it was used correctly, and makers did most certainly not stamp out a positive and negative of the same badge, in separate materials, then attach them in a most clumsy manner, not bother to clean the razor sharp edges, and include an individually hand-stamped (and badly stamped, as well as being stamped all over the arrow, in many different positions) letter S, that is also not found on any other TR badge or award.

The more we get to understand actual badge and award production, the more we will find Threads like these, in the future, rather embarrassing to read, as it really is a joke badge, starting from its construction, through to the markings and stories, theories and whatever else people may like to support it with.

Look at the first image in post 17, that says it all really, dont worry that the number has been changed on the bag, its done in fountain pen, which nobody uses anymore.
 
An idea of mine was that the messing / copper was more easy to stamp as the other material. Or it was easy to produce these badges in this way because the manufacturer needed production rescources for other more important badges! The Leistungsabzeichen had to be a cheap mass production for children only. Or is it possible that such badges where produced for a while because of war damage / enemy action or something like that? Maybe absolutely nonsense.
 
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Well its one thing to look at extremely magnified pictures and say its of bad quality .....
Thanks
Bjorn
Even when the person who presented these, extremely magnified images, presented them in such a way as to make it crystal clear - the differences between the manufacturing marks left behind, and found on - period, correctly constructed badges, as can be seen in the comparison on post 17 here? I have to say, i think not.

When time permits, i would like to change the first post of this thread, and update it will all the points that need to be considered, and questions that need to be addressed, starting with the Historical questions these badges raise pertaining to their possible production date, and ending with the many, many other problems. This "negative" list will be very long, and all questioned asked will be hard ones to factually answer to any degree, and the "Pro" list? will be what? The letter "S" ? what? what will the Pro list contain? what should it contain? because there is not one single positive thing about this badge, or about these badges.
 
A possibility is that the original material (cupal or messing) was not available so they had to use this special material combination for a while. Maybe because the copper layer was more easy to stamp / coin / handle at all? Copper was a very important material for war production so maybe they used only this thin layer. It would be interesting to know in which way both materials were attached together! Was in a - maybe - wartime way? What is the range of numbers of these "fake" badges? Can we find a - maybe short - timeline for these numbers? Why should a faker produce fake badges in this complex way with different materials? Why should a faker devise this strange "S"? Because his name was Stanislaw, Stroganow or Sven? Could the "S" be a shortcut for "Stanze", "Sonder", "Spezial", "Silber" or something else? There are lots of questions and we will find no answers right now I guess!

Even when the person who presented these, extremely magnified images, presented them in such a way as to make it crystal clear - the differences between the manufacturing marks left behind, and found on - period, correctly constructed badges, as can be seen in the comparison on post 17 here? I have to say, i think not.

When time permits, i would like to change the first post of this thread, and update it will all the points that need to be considered, and questions that need to be addressed, starting with the Historical questions these badges raise pertaining to their possible production date, and ending with the many, many other problems. This "negative" list will be very long, and all questioned asked will be hard ones to factually answer to any degree, and the "Pro" list? will be what? The letter "S" ? what? what will the Pro list contain? what should it contain? because there is not one single positive thing about this badge, or about these badges.
 
.. keeping the tradition of collecting alive by replacing common logic with WHAT IF

I concede.... in fact, i GIVE UP ! :crying:
But you have at least a Plus-point for the "Pro" list now, and that is.... WHAT IF...
:frusty::frusty::frusty:
 
Hi Sven,

A lot of what you ask there has been covered in this thread and in another on these 'S' badges . Have a good read through both mate because the information is split between them.
 
Negative points that must be addressed:


  • Both M1/101 and M1/35 makers marks are found on these, although we know that both of these makers made HJ Leistungsabzeichen, and we know they did not make them like this.
(The backing plates are made by the same maker, see post 3. ) yet on M1/101 the numbers are raised, and on M1/35 the numbers are hand stamped – and not from the same period)


  • We know that shoddy workmanship was not tolerated at the time these were supposed to be made
(or can anyone show other examples of TR era badges that have razor sharp edges?)


  • We know that these are pretending to be made from Cupal, but are not


  • They are not silver washed, whereas we know that almost every single HJ leistungsabzeichen ever made was silver-washed, or blackened, or bronze-washed, even by these makers M1/101 and M1/35
(But most reproductions are not silver-washed, are they? No, indeed not, but why no alarm bells here?)


  • Why are they marked by hand? Even the individual numbers are hand stamped, and in cases Over-stamped (see post 3.)


  • Why are they marked by Boris-the-Animal, horribly and irregularly? But only these, S-marked badges by M1/101 and M1/35, which are clearly all made by the same person, Boris. Yet when we view Authentic M1/101 and M1/35 badges, we find that both makers used different materials and different markings, and did not use the same tooling-except for these, Boris-the-animal-S-marked badges?


  • Why were the same dies, ie: tooling not used to make these, when we know that both M1/101 and M1/35 were using normal tooling for these before, and after the numbers found on these?


  • Why are there no other Third Reich awards or badges found (ever) that are made in this fashion?


  • The Theory of these being made from “lesser” quality materials is blown out of the sky by the fact that Aluminum was anything but, a low grade material, and sheet-messing as well. So these cannot be attributed to any material shortage.


  • Why are no other TR ear badges or awards marked with the letter S? Is it even mentioned at all that a letter S was ever used? Either 100 years ago or today? No, it is not.

The Positive points that need to be addressed:

WHAT IF……..
 
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I took a few Authentic HJ leistungsabzeichen marked M1/101, and compared the impressed, or stamped, number "9" (in the awardee number) on the good ones, to the stamped number "9" on "S" marked badges supposedly by them, and to badges that had the serial number struck out (another set of weirdo badges that are also constructed like this) and what is very clear, is that the numbers were not stamped by the same tooling, there are differences in a few of the numbers. Below are two examples, portions of the number 9 from both good and bad, and the tip of the number 1 from both good and bad.

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The S marked badge M1/35 in the beginning of this thread, i took close-ups of the obverse at the end of the arrow on the bottom (see small image circled in black and red) and then i took a good HJ Leistungsabzeichen marked M1/35, and took the same close-ups from the same areas for comparison. After all, this would be a good place to look for the "micro-patina" and see if we canm see any differences in either Patina, or material used.

The images that were taken from the S marked M1/35 badge, have a small pic-in-pic, and the authentic bade images from the same places have none... but did i need to tell you that?
:swiss

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Another one for the thread Jo. Spotted by one of our members over in the for sale section of WAF today. Serial 179173:

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I changed the background colour to bring out the detail.

Edit: I also sent the WAF seller a PM containing a link to this thread.
 

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Hello, a good thread except the cheap use of the word Parkinson's, of which my Father-inlaw now a suffers from, a WW2 vet, that helped clean up the mess @ Dachau. A few pics of one for sale now on he net.

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Notwithstanding your father-in-law's service, I think that if every word likely to offend someone were banned there would be a lot less scope for humour in the world. Sometimes we laugh at things when we know we shouldn't and we are aware that someone might not like it but hey, that's life and all will be forgotten when the next huge metereorite hits and wipes us all out :)
 
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