The "Y" obverse design - RZM 67 HJ Ehrenzeichen

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Discussed on WAF, (LINK) nobody knows, many opinions, dealers have sold them, vets have "supposedly" brought them back.
I was lucky and won the numbered version 40282 on the last Butschek auctions. Of note is that it was sold as a reproduction, but the end price went up to €72.- so there must have been at least 1 person who was bidding against me that believes that it is genuine. When i have time, i will add onto this thread, take this badges pants down, and give it the complete once over. Stay tooned - or tuned, the choice is yours, when it comes to the final test though, you dont have a choice :lol:

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well i for one will be waiting patiently on this one! :thumb:
...then i shall take delight in letting you wait a little longer:swiss
Maybe later on today, or tomorrow at the latest. In hand, is much better than trying to figure out the where`s and why`s from a few on line images taken at mongoloid angles. :pound:
 
slap yo mamma & give me back my €72.- !!!

What a waste of time & money :w00t:

The obvious.
Well that was actually when i had it in hand. From the photos we have seen so far, of the 4 or so shown online, they actually look semi-decent. The strange "Y" pattern under the red enamel is what captures the eye - Aye, indeed, and Y, or why? maybe so that collectors will say - Well why would a faker go to that much trouble to make the badge, then ruin it by incorp. such a stupid pattern? therefore, it must be real. (in fact that was already said on WAF) In any case, once i had unpacked it, and had it in my hand, i knew, with 100% certainty that it was a cheap fake. And i do mean cheap. Cheap and ugly.

The Reverse
No patina, no wear and tear, in fact it is not even messing, but rather a cheaper copper mix, commonly found on fakes from the 80`s-90`s made in the UK.

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The outside rim
No patina, just a cheap base material

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The inner boundaries
No patina, just a poor cheap base material

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The enamel
Well it is glass enamel, and high firing enamel to boot, but nowhere near what period enamel looks like under magnification

The pattern
I wont bothering mentioning the Y pattern, because it is irrelevant, but what is worth mentioning, is that the dots, are in fact the dreaded Pigs Trotters, the same are found on the fake Volksdeutsche in Ungarn badges marked R.K, and the same are found in my book on the fake GPB (Latvian fake)

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The pattern II
There is a "padded" pattern under the white enamel. I covered this in my book, and without a doubt when this is seen, it means that it is a modern fake. (By Padded i mean that the pattern was not hand engraved onto the ready working die, but transferred from the working hub, or the master die, directly onto the working die, and impossibility if this was made 80 years ago.)

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A quick test is enough on this one, it is not messing, shows no wear at all, the dies were constructed unlike period badges, but exactly the same as a few fakes i know of originating from the UK.
The only conclusion to be reached, is that it is not, with 100% certainty, an original Third Reich item. My guess is that it was manufactured by Christopher Ailsby :001_cool: and not that long ago either, a few years maybe..
 

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GEEZ you were bursting to tell us! lol

as i expected, the stipplings terrible imo and am no talking about the Y its the little bits added in willy nilly around it !

mega diference in those pics to all your period messing close ups mate infact its like night and day!

cheers for the hassle/cost i for one appreciate it !
 
By the fact that i can call myself a little collector of this paticular awards I can tell you that I'm very curious about the results. I stay with the points: a believable reverse but really a weird frontal stipling design. But while reading trough your new book, I learned already that things can go in many different directions.


Regards, Wim
 
cant wait to see what the believers on waf say to your findings lol
 
.... But while reading trough your new book, I learned already that things can go in many different directions.
Yes Wim, of course it`s weird, but thats no reason to sink or float it. The way it is made, and what certain areas look like under magnification are important here.
Of course the actual way in which the pattern was transferred onto the obverse working die here gives it away not only with the signs of having parts of the pattern partially pressed onto the die already, and not hand cut, but also in the way in which the pattern itself is made, or "tooled" onto the working die. In layman's terms, the way how the little dots were applied to the die - Which is nothing like period work, and everything like the modern and rather cheapish fakes we find from the 80-90`s era.

Naturally there are a few things you could look at on this, and small badges in general, but for me, the one that i want to know about first, is the patina on the outer rim and surface, because if it is not exactly what i expect to see, there needs to be a really good reason why.

But as i said, in hand you can see the thing is a Mickey Mouse job, but it is still good to check it under magnification anyway, just to reassure yourself. I know that i do keep going on about the patina thing under magnification, but i do because it is just a fact, no matter how many genuine badges you inspect, you will always find the same. No matter how many fakes badges you inspect, you will also, always find the same, the complete opposite, or absence of what is found on originals. I cant change that, and anyone who thinks that it is crap and BS cant change it either, because it just is, simple forensics that we dont have any influence over.

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BRILLIANT!! Thanks very much Jo, looking foward to see some destruction!!!

Take care

Regards

Antonio
 
I just realized that Wim cant see anything i post :sad:
Here are two free-bee close-ups for you Wim, of one of the "dots" from the HJ badge, showing how it was "applied" to the die. The image to the left is a part under the white enamel, showing a half-hearted transferred pattern of sorts, and not directly applied to the die as they should be. Overall, the material as well as die construction are really bad.

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Thanks for the pictures Jo. So a bad one after all. Wonder when it was produced. This badge is a pretty old fake. On page 201 of the first edition (1988) of Forman's Guide to Third Reich German Awards...and their Values" it is alredy pictured as the real thing. I think I must believe you in the fact that many old reference works are filled with crap.


Regards, Wim
 
Wim, you beat me to that one. On page 267 of the second edition of the book you mention, not only is the same badge pictured again, but it is a composite of 2 different badges, the obverse shows this exact badge with Y pattern, yet the reverse shows a numbered DEUMER badge, N° 131131.

As you will have read in the last chapter in my book Wim, Adrian Forman is mentioned there as well, alongside a few other English collectors-experts-dealers-authors. When was it made? sorry you cant read my posts above, but i already took a guess, as well as what "country" it comes from :) and it`s the same as you, about the time it was shown in the book you mention, mid-1980`s.

The more we dig Wim, the more tears there will be. And the more we persistently stick to one item, the more we will be able to trace the web of deceit back to where it started. I`m quite lucky, because this is what my book is warning you about, and because it is true, i will always be able to say that; I told you so :lol: Yep, a pathetic claim to fame i know, but still....

The WAF thread on these badges is dead, it seems the policy adopted there is chatter about something, toss your opinion in, and then let it be. But if you stick on it, just like what happened with the unmarked brown HJ badge for foreigners on this forum, and keep on needling away, researching, uploading one when it is seen or for sale etc, then after a while, just sometimes you will see a pattern forming.

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