Does this look right?

One of the few badges I ever bought off the internet. This was back in the early 90's. I could have returned it but decided to hold onto it. Now that I have a place to have it looked at by other collectors, I would appreciate some comments.
Thanks

 

I'm not an expert on this, but if that is a fake Pilot's Badge then it's a good one.

The detailing ( domed rivets on the reverse, blunt pin/barrel hinge ) all look correct.

As for the maker's insignia, I'll have to leave that to others with more knowledge.....

 

looks straight enough to me, stewy, john, or fischer..would know..

 

I honestly cant tell. I have a minty early war made Pilots badge which has the stylized "A" on it for Assmann und Sohn. Yours has slightly different features on it than mine. Mines packed away and I cant access it to take it out to try to compare front details.

On looking at it more, I feel thats its a great piece-and here is one reason why. Look closely at the wings, you see individual feathers within them. Those feathers are like the feathers on my badge.

Like I said though, im no expert on LW badges cept the two I own. All I can do is try to compare others to mine which I kow are good.

 

I have a pilots badge marked CE Juncker Berlin, and I have a Observers badge, not marked and then this Combined Pilots/Observers badge. I don't have the resources to find info on the makers marks. The other 2 badges have some wear around the top of the eagles wings. I guess what had me wondering was the fact that the area between the eagles legs is not cut out. It was the first Luftwaffe badge I bought.

 

I've done a little 'internet digging' and I think your badge is OK - in fact, rather nice....

The cut-out between the legs of the Eagle isn't a problem ; as the badges were hand-finished they exhibited many small differences. The manufacturer is Berg & Nolte, Ludenscheid.

One of the interesting links I found was this one...

Luftwaffe

 

In my opinion this is a cast fake. The eagle is not an original B&NL example...the fletching is all soft in detail when compared to an original buntmetal original B&NL example. The eagle is not even on the badge in the correct position...look how far down the swastika goes down...it should not be anywhere near the wreath. The reverse is just not quite right either in my opinion...the rivets are close but not correct, as is the hinge, pin and catch. In my opinion this is a fake badge.

Lets see what the rest of the experts have to say about this piece.....

Here is what the obverse & reverse of an original buntmetal B&NL will look like...

 

I have to admit there are certainly some obvious differences there. Once again it goes to show that with the high prices now being charged for such items, the quality of 'fakes' keeps increasing.....

 

Sad but true I am afraid...that is what makes collecting sought after items so dangerous nowadays. You really need to do your homework when buying these kind of items.

Rich

 

I also wanted to note that B&NL was not a manufacturer of the Pilot's Observer's badge. They indeed made Pilot's badges but never the combined Pilot's Observer's badge.

 

Ive never seen feathering on bad ones like this before? Is scary to think about. I know for certain that my badge is good. My badge in particular I had been lucky to get the highest quality of pictures taken of it with no less than a TV studio Camera by the guy who was in charge of advertising. He was able to zoom in on mine so close that you could count the feathers within the feathers. This was about 12 years ago and I no longer have any scans due to probably getting lost in one of my various relocates. Anyway, the guy that looked at my badge, is a bigtime collector and tried to buy it from me then for about $1,000 which was about triple the going price.

Anyway, like I said, im no expert but had hoped what little I could contribute to LW badge confirmations-was actual useful info. I thik from now on, ill keep my "expertise" where I actually DO know my stuff much better-which is rank and branch insignia & photographic materials. ;-)) If you ahve any shoulderboards and or collartabs? lemme know.

PS, I dont know enough on Cufftitles to help so in case you have some-Skipper of someone else will be better to ask.

PS, as a side not of sorts and way off topic, I DO have a surviving scan of my Mauser Sniper Rifle with close shots of markings and details-taken by the same guy with the same TV station camera. One of these months ill attempt to retrieve it from whatever box its in and will make a new scan of it and send it to someone who can post the pics for me.

 

The feathering is horrible on this example. Soft with little detail...this comes from being cast. This same eagle is used on numerous fakes...also this spurious B&NL mark is used on all sorts of fake Luftwaffe badges.

 

Hi CC, I still have not seen personlly many pilots badges or PB/O combos. All I know about them stands in the one example I have which is a good piece that a collector I got it from got from the pilots estate he bought, some 12 or so years ago. I was there when he opened the two large crates. Same goes for my pair of Generals colartabs ;-))