Spanish Blue Division Arm Shield for Review

[Aldo]

I just bought a Spanish Blue Division volunteers arm shield that I am having doubts about. I have not received it yet so I am posting the website photo's for the time being. It is supposed to be an Officers bullion padded version. I am familiar with the standard bevo versions but not this type. This patch remind me of the U.S. theater made patches that were quite different from their standard counterparts. I usually vet an item before I pull the trigger on something but the price was right and it convinced me at the time. I was afraid of losing the opportunity to get one at a decent price. I have conducted numerous image and website searches with only one hit resembling the one I bought. It sold on emedals for quite a lot, but that is not definitive proof of anything as I've seen many fakes get by on that website. All the historical archive pictures show the standard bevo version on uniforms. In fact, our colleague TABSTABS1964 recently posted a photo of General Agustín Muñoz Granes receiving the Ritterkreuz. In the photo he is seen wearing a standard patch. As soon as the shield arrives I will post detailed photo's, but in the meantime feel free to opine.

Thanks in advance, Al

[Adrian Stevenson]

I cannot ever recall seeing a wire bullion one before. I would stick to the machine woven examples personally.

Cheers, Ade.

[Kohima]

I like the reverse of the upper badge (and am assuming that to be the example you bought), and can understand your temptation to buy.
However, I’m not convinced by some of the materials involved (particularly the yellow & red body ribbon, which looks a little synthetic for my liking, though that in itself is not impossible), and I would expect a far better rendering of the Espana lettering, when compared to the quality of the border. That said, because of the small scale of such details, lettering is often reduced to its simplest rendering, so again this is not necessarily a bad sign.

50/50

There are a few too many doubts about this example for me to feel comfortable either way, so in short, I quite agree with Adrian on this one. Play it safe with a standard type, unless you are sure of its origin.

I hope you can return it with no trouble, should you decide to do so.

All the very best,
Bob

[Aldo]

Hi Bob, I did consider all the points you brought up. I particularly focused on the simplistic lettering and tilde sign and came to the same conclusion. I also feel it still has a good chance of being a good variation but without further evidence of it's origin I decided to cancel the order. Thanks to you & Ade for the assistance.

Al.

[Aldo]

Here is a series of photo's showing the shield in use, including some high ranking officers, and they are all standard patches.

[Aldo]

[Aldo]

Just a few more in color

[Kohima]

I particularly like the top image in post #6... very interesting uniform details, such as the cap adornments (including Luftwaffe rank schwingen), damage to the sleeve and what appears to be quite severe damage to the breast Adler!
The last image is just lovely...
(Soppy bugger, me).

Many thanks,
Bob

[Aldo]

I figured I'd post a few more pictures from my reference books depicting the use of the shield. Apparently there were two versions of the arm shield, the other being the one with EK superimposed over the Falange arrows. I always assumed these were post war veteran shields but period photo's indicate otherwise.

On a side note I love the practice of the Blue squadron pilots wearing their own Spanish wings over the German breast adler. Just another example of the Spanish volunteers mixing German and Spanish insignia on their uniforms.

[TabsTabs1964]

Hello to everyone, thank you Aldo for this fantastic thread.
First of all I would like to say the following: I suppose that almost all the Spanish militaria collectors have our BEVO arm patch/shield from the Blue Division. And practically all of us have a copy, a non-authentic patch, more or less good, but not original.
The reason is very simple the arm patch of the Blue Division is probably the element of Spanish militaria with more reproductions and falsifications.
It is faked even in some popular photos, which many people believe to be authentic, but they are not.


The fake photo.


The authentic photo.