AD Schwerdt and the Leistungsabzeichen

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Wim Vangossum

Wim Vangossum

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Hi everyone,



I have a very technical question about the HJ leistungsabzeichen made by AD Schwerdt. Some collectors claim that these badges are made of cupal. Our old friend Jo Rivett once said they are just made from silver washed messing. Now I have made some little study about them and I came to the following conclusions:

Cupal was an a replace material that mainly came into use during the War. So that doesn’t fit with the rather early type of this non-RZM marked badge?

Tombak (a coper alloy like messing) weights about the double of Cupal. When I weight M1/101 marked leistingsabzeichens they weight around 9,25 gram, the AD Schwerdts around 7.30 gram but they are thinner executed (material thickness 2.25mm (M1/101) versus 1.8mm (Schwerdt)). So they don’t weight the half of the M1/101.

I also don’t see any kind of sandwich structure on the edges of the badge normally visible with Cupal?



So I came to the conclusion that Jo has right and these badges are made of a copper alloy and not from Cupal. However, rather think of Tombak (a more reddish colored alloy) then messing (yellow colored alloy) like visible on the worn off lettering on the front.



Remarks and conclusions?

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An advanced German Collector said that two types of metal were used for the production of this badge: a normal copper alloy and also Cupal. Anyone here who have such a Cupal badge?
 
Hi Wim,

To me your explanations sound logical, especially as the low award number supports the hypothesis.
Tombak and brass are also close relatives, to be more precise, Tombak/tombac is a type of brass with a very high copper content, between 70 and 90%. The reddish colouring of the badge due to wear should support that.
 
Thanks for your opinion Jack. Yes, the reddisch color makes me think of Tombak too.

In the mean time I looked around a bit and heard that Cupal already was used on some uniform buttons in the 30's. So it's not a neccesary late period related material. My German friend also provided me with a picture of a "B" designation AD schwerdt from his wonderful collection. First time a see these. Must be pretty rare? He also said this manufacturer made them both in Cupal and Tombak/brass

I'm also surprised how easy dealers determine all kind of base metals when they offer HJ leistungsabzeichen in general: the speak from aluminium, zinc etc...
 
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