some of my thoughts
I was asked to give some more thoughts on the engravings on these items, (the items themselves might be from before 1945, by the way) so let‘s start:
The quality is just not what I am used to when it comes to engravings before 1935. Engravings were mostly done by gold or silver smiths (some working at local jewelers). I am also not speaking of scratching done in the field or in camps.
The other question is why were things engraved anyway? Normally, or as for the items owned within my family for generations they were given to someone as a present which would remind the person it was presented to of the person, company, fraternity, party, military unit or club that presented it. So there was often a text refering to the occasion (sometimes a date) and sometimes the names of people involved.
The items here: Cufflinks often have the owner's monogram on the visible side. I have not seen any town names engraved on cufflinks yet. Maybe I would have expected RfS on a cufflink, but not a single town name.
Has anybody ever seen any other HJ cufflinks like this one? The HJ diamond is off center. The top seems to be in the middle, the bottom a bit too much to the right. To me it looks like it was just added onto the wave pattern later.
On the second cufflink there is just the town name Lesum, poorly engraved: At least the lower bar of the L is not straight. The free space left of the first letter is much smaller than the space right of the last letter. I'd say a German gold or silver smith would have done better.
On a finger ring like this I would have expected a monogram or maybe the 3 letters RfS. But here there is also the name of the place added. Lesum is a suburb in Bremen. Why would you want this to be written on a finger ring?
Or have just not seen enough rings yet?
Looking at the Hanhart chronograph (not a chronometer) or stoppwatch or Stoppuhr: I thought this is a military item (reference
book: K. Knirim "military watches" page 258). Was this also used by the BdM and HJ? But I am not a specialist on this. This item seems to be marked as school property, since the address is also given so it would not be stolen or returned if lost. Here I wonder about straight lines in the address' writing in relation to the shape of the RfS letters. They seem to be disproportional, this was the main quality problem I had on first sight.
The wristwatch marked >RfS Lesum< would also belong to the school then? I would say this was at least uncommon. If it was a personal item, why is there no occasion, year or name mentioned?
Punzen (puncheon?) were used to mark that something belongs to a company, party, organization, (also military organizations). We find that on a lot of cutlery, weapons, and other stuff, not only metal pieces but also leather sometimes. So items were not engraved but rather embossed (I am not sure about the English terms here). But this was normally not used for private pieces, these were engraved.
I have to admit: I don't know how these items came to the Netherlands (where I saw them on the net). I have never had these items in my hand. Also I am not a specialist on cufflinks, finger rings, watches and chronographs. I have never seen similar items from other schools, but I am not very familiar with TR stuff between 1935 and 1945. Are the engravings correct? Was Lesum referred to as a RfS? Did girls were cufflinks in those times? Or are these considered a male teacher's items? (Maybe there is a nice story behind it of a blond Dutch girl who attended the school at Lesum and later married her fiancé who was a HJ leader, and this is why these mixed items showed up here and now ...
But there are people out there who say you should buy the item and not the story - not even the engravings).
Sorry if I hurt anybody's feelings or bored you with my thoughts. Maybe everything is totally different ...
A lot of differently engraved Hanhart military Stopwatches are out in the internet.
What are your opinions on this one? Is it an original HJ item now?
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