The finish of a real HJ Meisterschütze badge

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Hi everyone, Please take a look at this link to a Golden Sharpshooter badge posted by Ron Weinand on the WAF. He clearly state that they are fire gilded, just like a Golden Party Badge and an HJ Führer Sportabzeichen. Click here Recently I was able to compare a very fine made -but fake- HJ Führer Sportabzeichen with an original. On website pictures they both look the same quality but with a hand inspection the cheap gold finish was easy to detect. Now back at the Golden Shooting badge: look at the difference in color between the overview and the close up. In the first overview picture you see clearly the gold painted finish typical for fire gilding and IMO the only way the seldom genuine Golden HJ shooting badge has to look like. Regards, Wim
 
I hope Ron doesn't mind that I show his badge here. Take a look at the clear fire gilded wreath and rifles. Also shown in the second picture are a real fire gilded HJ Führer Sportabzeichen and his fake electro plated twin brother.

Regards, Wim

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The badge shown by Patrick W in that thread is a copy in my opinion. Very soft detail on the wreath, signs of casting on the reverse, black enamel rings too perfect for the general condition of the badge.
 
The badge shown by Patrick W in that thread is a copy in my opinion. Very soft detail on the wreath, signs of casting on the reverse, black enamel rings too perfect for the general condition of the badge ....
Oooh, this adds so much weight to what i posted here !
Pity the posts cant somehow be partially merged.
:001_cool:
 
I see what you mean, Jo. I paticulary had to bring this subject under attention for the clear visible fire gilding used on Ron's badge. It's my opinion now that every Golden HJ Sharpshooter badge that is not fire gilded an not has the "painting gold" look of a GPB or a HJ Führer badge is just a fake. There are too many of these rare awards available for collectors and they pop up, made by too many manufacturers ... something seems to be not right.

Regards, Wim
 
Don't forget though that these Meisterschütze are not as rare as most think. The usual number quoted is around 850 badges awarded but in my article there is an award certificate for HJ Meisterschütze badge 2303 (awarded April 1944)
 
Ok Garry, let's say a few thousend. It still is rare compared to other pins. And after the things that have been discovered by Jo, I find the HJ shooting badge one of the most and heavely faked items both in quantity and quality. For a long time dealers called the Golden HJ abzeichen a heavy faked item, simply because they diden't know much about them. But fakes of the Golden HJ Abzeichen are poor compared to their HJ shooting counterparts. The last couple of months we have seen very good fakes of the DJ shooting award and the Silver HJ shooting award. Before Jo's little investigation we lived in a dream that every nice enameled badge with a nice rzm mark simply had to be a good one. Now we know that it's not treu. Some of these enamels are as good as the best high end fakes in military combat awards.

I also see the importance of quality picture work. A photo who can't capture the exact finishing color of a badge is a bad thing. In the case of the HJ Führer badge, for instance I couldn't give the client a final conclusion before he send it to me for a hand inspection. That hand inspection was made in one second! more time I diden't need to see it was no fire gilding.

Are you agree that these Golden Sharpshooters have to be real fire gilded?

Regards, Wim
 
Hi Wim,

In my experience the finish on these badges is not that durable whereas fire-gilding is. What I was trying to get across is that the finish on the real ones is bright, more 'golden'. Unmistakeable as I say.

I have only handled three Meisterschütze so far - all from M1/63. The reverse usually looks good but the on the obverse you normally only see traces or at best very little of the gold finish left. That was on all three so in my opinion these weren't fire-gilded.

If Ron were to upload a nice, sharp shot of his badge I think that we would see that the raised parts of the wreath have no gold finish left.

Here's a shot of the reverse of the one I used to own. As you can see. Nice gold colour when compared to the WAF badge.

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Well, as you`ll all know, there are no Gold plated NS-membership badges, so i don't really think i could add any substantial comments directly on this Gold plating, Gilding topic, other than the following. I wanted to learn more about Enamel abnormalities this year, and was not happy with the information i had accumulated up until then, it was useful, but could not explain what i was looking to answer, without a heavy portion of "assumption" from my side, which is not really the way i am 100% happy in reaching any definitive conclusions, and most certainly not printing them for future collectors.
So i contacted a few Internationally acclaimed Enamel Artists, one of whom works in a small badge factory, one is amongst the Top Enamel Artists in the UK, one in the US and a few in Germany. I contacted two here in Switzerland, and was very fortunate enough to be able to visit both, show them samples of what puzzled me, gain (free) hands on experience and ask them the same silly questions.
Apart from a half tank of Gas, it only cost me time, and although i am still in no way any kind of expert on Enamel, i can now, answer all the questions that i had before using facts and solid info. I can also stand on yet a few more Militaria-Authors heads for printing rubbish when it comes to enamel. As trivial a Topic as it is, (lots of Enamel info on the net for free) it was worth my time in gold to actually see it being done, speak to the experts and learn. Most people (Militaria Authors) who brush on this topic and try and explain something about Enamel are just quoting what they have read somewhere else, without actually knowing what they are saying, and therefore, talking Crap ! That does not come as a shock to me, as the Militaria Author seldom does any real Footwork or real research.

So where does this leave me. Well not as an expert in any one field, but in a good position to put even more egg on the faces of these "household" Mili-Authors, who have, since 1946, copied and pasted information, assumed that Opinion and assumption was fact , printed it, and reaped hail and praise (and fortune)

I got carried way :violin: back to this Fire-gilding saga.

The only way to go forward here, is not by comparing pictures. What is needed, is for someone with a hunger for real, solid info and facts, to contact a few Goldsmiths and Artists who offer this service still. To talk to them, to make appointments to go and see them, to ask them questions, have examples of Gold-plated and Fire-gilded items shown to them, and show them a few items too, learn why they look differently, find out trivial things like would gold-plating react in time to a certain material, would Fire-guiding react in the same way, would it rub off easily, could an attachment first be soldered on and then the item fire-gilded, what would it have cost back then, and most importantly... would fresh gold plating look like fresh fire-guiding !

That way, you can learn, and come back to the forums as a super hero, and end any and every discussion on this topic with solid facts, instead of opinion and gibberish, comparing images and he-said she-said. Which is what should have been done in the beginning, like so much in our Hobby, 99,9% speculation coupled with opinion instead of turning to History and the basic facts first.
 
....and most importantly... would fresh gold plating look like fresh fire-guiding !
This is an extremely important question, as we are talking about items "gold-plated, galvanized, gilded" 80 years ago, when they were made to look correct and to sell, not today in 2011 after they have been laying in drawers, in workshops, in boxes in cold attics, in a river, on top of a cupboard exposed to 70 years of sun, handled by 500 children, thrown around the house, taken to school, rubbed, used, abused etc etc etc....... it is therefor absolute rubbish to even try and explain the "look" or "compare" these items without knowing the basic facts first.
 
I partly agree with your thoughts about asking it to craftsmen. I'm far from an expert when it comes to fire gilding but I have learnt a bit to recognize it. All my Golden Party Badges have the very distinctive "painted gold" look, my HJ Führer sport badge has it, the Schwerin High See fleet badges have it and Ron's two gilded HJ badges in the picture have it. And when you walk trough a fancy antique fair, many of the showed old candles etc have it. When I use the words of Stephen Lauren he speaks clear of the look of fire gilding and they way it ages. Where it is worn off it turns into a deep brownish patina.

IMO fresh gilding will never match the color of fire gilding. Normal gilding has a certain metallic look, fire gilding looks more like a delicate paint (in fact it is partly a painting proces whereafter the heating reveals the gold color) The proces is also not that time consuming. It's unhealty but goes pretty fast.

But this aside what are your thoughts about production of the Golden HJ shooting Badge besides Steinhauer and Lück and Wilhelm Deumer? Do you think other makers are believable?
 
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But this aside what are your thoughts about production of the Golden HJ shooting Badge besides Steinhauer and Lück and Wilhelm Deumer? Do you think other makers are believable?
Wim, i think you have missed the point a bit here, none of us know anything about Gold gilding, or Gold Plating, so therefore all we can debate about is our opinions of what we think it should look like after 70 odd years.
Party badges and HJ badges were not always galvanized, (most use the term Silver washed including myself, but the correct term is Galvanized) so it would depend on the maker, and the time frame he needed to produce badges in, the same would theoretically go for all items, including items that were "supposed" to be fire gilded, that is why i said we need to find out what a freshly Fire gilded piece compared to a freshly gold plated piece would have looked like, because it is more than possible that makers cut corners and got some items gold plated instead of gilded, for whatever reasons, time, money, maybe the area was bombed out and gilding was no longer an option as was the case from 1941 onwards in many parts of Germany, so what i am getting at, is that we really need to know all we can about the actual process first, before we discuss it, otherwise we are running around in circles.
Go back to the start, and do the job properly, learn about the process, then when we understand it, ONLY THEN can we start to rule certain "things" out, and only then can we really start to compare, backed up with real, hands on knowledge!

I have never owned a Gold Hj shooter, and i don't believe i have even held on in my hands either, it`s not something that has ever interested me to be honest, so i wouldn't know what to say. All i can do is take Party badge knowledge relating to the time period, and manufacturing levels, combine it with my research in that department, and shoot from the hip on obvious oddities / abnormalities that stick out to me like a sore thumb, regarding either makers marks, construction, overall feeling you get for small enamel badges after handling them for so long..and the rest. But if going on the post that says there were indeed over 2000 made, when Reference books say only 850 were made/awarded, it is crystal clear that in depth research has not been done.

Wim, i wont quote the posters name, but on another forum, recently you have a chat with a guy about the Stahlhof, which he though was the Trademark for Steinhauer and Lück, what he posted sums up everything i have always been saying..

From an other forum said:
I have been collecting Stahlhelm Commemorative Badges for many years (only missing the ultra-rare 1918) and have always assumed them to have been made by Steinhauer.

See Wim, this is your Average collector, Collecting for soooooo many years, an Expert in this and that, but does not bother to do any homework, does not take the slightest bit of interest in the maker, the History behind the item and so on...... does not seek out the facts and is happy to collect for the sake of collecting.

Maybe it is just me, and maybe i am just too passionate about these items and about History, but did i not just prove it with the Otto Hoffmann post? a small amount of research can sink 1000 opinions and debates of those who just rely on skimming info from the web, or don't do any research at all. This is why i am certain, that once we understand the actual Gold gilding process more, it will enable us to come to conclusions based on Facts, and not what you, me, or anyone else thinks about Photos and what we think looks correct.
 
Wim, nice link, but it does not explain any of the questions that we would need to ask, or need to know. I learned that about the Enamel oddities recently, when i had hands on experience and talked to people who could explain the exact questions that i had to ask them, relating speciafically to the process 80 years ago, and the material available and widely used 80 years ago!, It was worth 10,000 links, or any "book" found on the internet. But you are continuing to back up my points that i make all along, that collectors don't want to do the actual research or footwork, and expect every ounce of knowledge per mouse click :sneaky2: which is just not the way that in depth knowledge is gained.
 
I agree that talking with craftsmen is the best way to get any farther. But it's not easy to find them. I found out that many modern jewellers don't know anything about older techniques. All what I learnt about making jewellery comes from the net. There are pretty much you tube films that educate the novice a bit more so that you can say at least "Ah, that's how they do this or that" That's the reason why I posted the link. But I agree it keeps still very basic.

Regards, Wim
 
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