2. SS Pi. Btl.5

[don_kihotis7]

Yes, definitely; it's identical to the one Glenn had and I have no doubt that one's fake. It'd take some very, very convincing evidence to make me believe otherwise anyway LOL Like a photograph of this supposed Danish Volunteer actually presenting the disc he'd kept for 60+ years to the first collector, and there being a document signed by him stating formally that it had been his during the war. I suspect though that it was simply that someone looked up the records and found that number had been a Danish soldier- if even that. They might simply know the unit was made of largely Danish men or something.

Lol i get the picture
Damn i was happy to get another ss erkennugsmarke after so long.

[Matt L]

I've added the better picture of Glenn's former disc to the fakes sticky thread.

And you bought it? Uh oh- when you said it belonged to a Danish friend, I was sad for him but it's even worse if it's you who's now stuck with it! Damn.

[don_kihotis7]

No Matt but i was that close
I should have written in my previous post that "i was going to get".
Besides you know that i don't buy anything unless i post it first.

[Glenn66]

Damn, sorry Chris. It sure hurts getting stung by fakes.

[Matt L]

Oh whew; yeah I thought you knew better and was surprised that it sounded as though you'd bought without asking LOL Glad we saved you since that one is pretty convincing. If it had only been the one you posted, it'd have been tough to spot it as a fake- we're lucky the fakers were stupid and made more LOL

[Glenn66]

Wouldn't 603 men into a company be suspicious too? Once the initial complement of 250-odd men were 'expended' (for want of a better word), wouldn't the replacements come from an ersatz unit and be designated as such on their erkennungsmarken?

[Matt L]

Oh yes indeed- and it's likely since this unit was created by changing a name, rather than being raised 'brand new' it's even less-likely many, if any, men would have actually had a disc like this. Sometimes new units did issue discs to everyone, but it seems to have been uncommon. Normally wartime unit-marked discs are replacements for those lost somehow, so one would normally expect the number to be low. 600+ is suspicious to be sure. Just not as much as 3000 since this could have been one of those rare ones that did issue new discs to everyone, and over the course of 3 years, it's not inconceivable they replaced so many soldiers. It still seems high for that but it's not clearly silly. Especially since it has a specific story about its origin- were it just supposedly dug up, then yeah, suspicious, but with more information supposedly known, we'd then ask how that was known and so on since there might be proof it is real afterall. The 3000 number disc makes all that pretty unlikely though- so thanks Glenn for making it easy for us LOL

[Glenn66]

Thanks Matt, great detective work as usual!

[don_kihotis7]

Of course. Like detective Monk

[Matt L]

LOL Yeah, I've been told I'm a little obsessive- good for my work though