M1/49 HJ-Ehrenzeichen (HJ honour badge)

heres the pics in case anyone wants to see them.

not familiar with this maker of HJ honor badge is it standard for the numbering to be so poorly placed

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I understand your concerns, Stu. Fact is that it is extremely rare. I have only two other serialnumbers in file by this maker, 107164 and 105180. So it is not floating the market like fake BM's and umarked examples. Many advanced enamel collectors take them as genuine. I still don't know what to think. I trying also to understand how the hell they worked it out with all those serialnumbers and so many different makers?
At this moment I came to:
16 x M1/78's, 17 x M1/70's, 17 x "15"s, 5 x M1/120's, 9 x M1/52's and 4 x (one I couldn't made up the complete serialnumber on the picture) M1/49's.

And with this all you see barely a pattern in the system. :confused1:


Regards, Wim
 
What seems odd to me is the combination of high award serial number and the GES GESCH/RZM markings. This badge was introduced in 1934 as you know Wim and around 125,000 are reported to have been awarded so this badge must have been issued well into the RZM period. I say that because the serial numbers do not denote any kind of heirarchical seniority but rather the order in which the entitled person's application was processed*. With that in mind I recently saw a badge in the 40,000 range which was applied for in 1935 so I can't see this M1/49 having been issued until possibly 1936/7 so as I say, interesting that it is marked in this way. It will be interesting to see how this pans out as this maker must be extremely rare. As far as the badge itself is concerned I like the look of it.

* The situation with the serial numbers isn't clear-cut because for the period prior to the qualification date of the 2nd of Oct 1932 the RJF didn't have full records for all members. They simply didn't know who was eligible in the majority of cases (for BDM and JM this was even more complicated) and this is noted in the regulations. This meant that they couldn't check against a list and award the badge in order of precedence or indeed in any order at all. It all had to be done through a system of testimonials and application forms. Applications all eventually ended up at the RJF Personalamt and I assume that the orders were sent from there to the manufacturers but I have nothing here which goes into more detail unfortunately.

It would be interesting actually to establish whether the Personalamt sorted the applications so that early members got low serial number badges but the evidence suggests that this would have been unworkable due to the large window of 1934-1939 (even later for Volksdeutsche in Estonia, Lithuania, Memel, Elsass, Romania etc etc who were also elegible for the badge) in which applications could be made.
 
Thanks for all this info, Garry. Maybe it explains the jumping serial numbers. I also wonder, if a badge was lost before 1940you could order a new one with serial number. Than, would this new badge be made strictly by the firm who made the original? Or could it happen that the organization "collected" lost numbers and placed then a new oder by a certain maker.

Lowest and higher numbers that I found:

M1/78: 2265 - 90.388
M1/70: 8527 - 9696
15 : 100 - 39857
M1/120: 55722 - 134462
M1/52: A112272 - A124379
M1/52: B1292 - B32640
M1/49: 108180 - 107437

Regards, Wim
 
These instructions/orders don't go into what happened at that stage unfortunately Wim so quite how the Personalamt decided which manufacturer to use is a bit of a mystery.

The Personalamt states in an instruction dated 10.2.39 that replacements took 8 weeks to be made and returned for delivery to the holders so it would seem clear that it was they who were making the decision on which companies should produce the replacements.
 
Here's another M1/49 for your notes Wim:

104080

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I have this one m1/49 the number is 101787 one more to wim
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Here is some better pictures of it
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