Erkennungsmarke is it real or fake?

[gerrit]

im totally not into ID tags but a friend of mine brought this one for examination.
Please help him with your knowledge, thx in advance

[Matt L]

It looks real enough, but the marking is quite odd- there are two different units, 1. Batterie/ Artillerie-Regiment 246 and I. Abteilung/ Artillerie-Regiment 33, and the lettering all matches so it would see the marking was all done at the same time. There's clearly an improvised comma between the two, which suggests the idea may have been that this man was listed in both units' rolls. I can't find any link between the two units- they're not even from the same Wehrkreis. You can find info about them on the Lexikon der Wehrmacht site.

[Jan S]

I was curious what is going on Matt... And iterestingly if he was mentioned on both rolls it must have been under the same nummer 180!

[Matt L]

Right, which makes it even weirder. Normally weird or inexplicable suggests fake, but in this case the disc looks just fine- I don't see anything suspicious about it.

[gerrit]

Thx Matt & Jan but it looks like there is no complete possitive id yet....hoping on a break through....

[Matt L]

I'm afraid 'don't see anything wrong with it' is probably the best you'll get; even if some explanation for the seemingly odd marking comes along, it'll just mean it's even less-likely to be a fake than it already is, it won't prove it's real. Discs are inherently difficult to authenticate since they're not exactly hard to fake- for the most part it's about experience, and I think I might be the most experienced person here when it comes to them (I think LOL). Fakes are usually identifiable because of errors, recognizable features, etc., and this has nothing I can point to- so the weird marking is the only issue, and that's just weird enough to be real LOL It's only possible to prove a disc is real if it can be traced back to its original owner, is from the same unit as one that can be, or was dug up under circumstances that are beyond doubt; otherwise it's really just opinion based on experience. In your case it's just experience, so you can't ever get 100% certainty.

Apart from looking real enough and having no obvious issues, it is just a regular Artillerie disc- not exactly of any significant value, so not the usual material for fakers. Were it offered to me back when I bought discs regularly, I'd probably have taken a chance on it- for the $20 or so it's worth, it's not a big gamble... so your friend can feel pretty safe I think.

[gerrit]

Thx Matt for the nice explanation its highly appreciated!
I will tell my friend the good news!

Cheers,
Ger

[Jan S]

Interestingly Artillerie-Regiment 246 was newly created 15. September 1944 in Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, in my country... If this is not a secret - where does the disc came from?

Jan

[gerrit]

Interestingly Artillerie-Regiment 246 was newly created 15. September 1944 in Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, in my country... If this is not a secret - where does the disc came from?

Jan

Hello Jan, i will ask him asap and get back to you on this issue.

Ger

[Matt L]

Well it was re-created in September, 1944- after the original AR246 was destroyed at Witebsk in June; and it was by the re-naming of Artillerie-Regiment 1565, and its I. Abteilung came from AER69, so the marking on this disc probably has nothing to do with the 'new' Regiment. Such a low roll number suggests it was from the original 1939 unit and the men who made up the new unit would have likely worn discs from their respective AEAs, AERs or even AR1565. It doesn't make sense to me that they'd start a new roll as then there'd be multiples of the same number and that's problematic. I looked at the possibility of the second marking indicating an 'original' unit in case of one of these redesginations, but AR33 had nothing to do with AR246 (formally).