HJ Golden Honour Badge M1/120 - Opinions please

[lammeleo]

Hi guys,

What do you think of this M1/120 honour badge ?

You don't have permission to view attachments.

You don't have permission to view attachments.

You don't have permission to view attachments.

You don't have permission to view attachments.

You don't have permission to view attachments.

Thank you for reviewing!

- Leo

 

[Garry]

Hi Leo,

The award number is way too low for an M1/120. A badge with that award serial number would originally have been made by M1/78 Paulmann und Crone.

I have been tracking these badges for years now and can confirm the information here:

How many makers of the Hitler Youth Golden honour badge were there? | HJ Honour badges

This is the running list of Hitler Youth Golden honour badge makers. As new confirmed makers come in they will be added to this post. Note: to be included into this list the maker must be shown in a primary source and/or the badge must be fully discussed. Last update: 24th of Sept 2024...

www.hj-research.com

 

[lammeleo]

Thank you. But how can we know. is there paperwork ?
How can it be that the badge is 100% correct but the number is too low ?

 

[Garry]

No probs. Your badge can be dated to late-1939 at the earliest because that was when the barrel safety catch was introduced. The serial number on your badge was within a batch of M1/78 badges sent to Gebiet Hessen-Nassau and the awardees would have been presented with those badges in 1936/7. It is therefore impossible for your badge to have that number unless it is a replacement for the lost M1/78 badge. However, replacement badges by M1/120 were marked with the original award serial number followed by a B (post-1940 all replacements were simply marked with B). Your badge is not marked as a replacement and it has a number that is way too low for the badge to be original in that configuration and by that maker but assuming the badge is genuine there are two possible explanations that I can think of:

This is indeed a replacement for the owner's original badge but M1/120 somehow didn't add the B to the award serial to denote that it is a replacement badge. You can see an example of a correctly-marked, pre-1939 M1/120 replacement here. Post-1939 replacements only had the B.

or

someone with no knowledge of the above information stamped that number onto the badge at some point.

 

[lammeleo]

The numbers would have been struck before the enamel was applied, as stamping them afterwards would damage the enamel. The badge is original because it shows the same tool marks seen on other M1/120 pieces. I therefore don’t believe the numbers were added later.

" The serial number on your badge was within a batch of M1/78 badges sent to Gebiet Hessen-Nassau" is there any proof of this ?

 

[Garry]

Hi,

Yes, there is evidence. In addition to the thread that I linked to in post 2 above which shows the batch range for M1/78 I have also been separately tracking the honour badge numbers for years as part of this project:

Who wore my HJ Honour badge? (HJ Ehrenzeichen) | HJ Honour badges

It is very often the case that the honour badge has become separated from the award document leaving it virtually impossible to establish whose badge you have. There are no complete lists of HJ Honour badge (HJ-Ehrenzeichen) awardees so we have to rely on surviving documents. Lets use our...

www.hj-research.com

If a badge number is listed there it means that I have identified the awardee and his/her location and unit using primary sources and primary documents. This project allows me to also build up a picture of where certain batches were sent and I can see from my list that your badge number is very close to a number of badges that were awaiting pick-up by the awardees in early 1937 in Gebiet Hessen-Nassau. It is not impossible that serial 45305 went somewhere else but it seems unlikely. In any case, your M1/120 did not exist when that award serial number was assigned to a HJ member. Here's a little list of M1/78 survivor honour badges . They are all M1/78 with one of them being only 30 serials away from the serial on your badge.

45014 (picture attached)
45334
45391
45707

This shows that the original 45305 was an M1/78 badge and that it is impossible for an M1/120 badge in the late-1939 configuration (barrel catch) to have that serial. There must be another explanation.

You don't have permission to view attachments.