Fake SS tag?

[Glenn66]

I don't think the lack of a blood group is a problem. None of my SS tags (4) have a blood group. Matt is your man for this, he knows way more than I do!

[Glenn66]

On another note, I just passed a fridge magnet (Hofbrauhaus, not that it matters ) over my dog tag posted above and NO sticky-sticky so it's not steel. I can only guess well aged zinc patina after 65 years in Northern Karelian soil.

[Jerry B]

I don't think the lack of a blood group is a problem. None of my SS tags (4) have a blood group. Matt is your man for this, he knows way more than I do!

Hi Glenn,

From reading past posts, I realise that Matt is the man and JPhilip, but sadly they have yet to post an opinion.

It's the lack of a company number that troubles me most at this time, as everything else seems to be within acceptable limits, no blood group is a sign of unissued (I think), steel is late war (as you said) which fits with it being pz gren as this would not be seen on an early tag. No obvious dodgy fonts used from what I can see, no use of just upper case, no use of big name units such as TK or LSSAH.

An expert opinion, no disrespect to you Glenn and you have been fantastic in responding in such a helpful manner, would be great and hopefully one will be posted soon.. AS I said in the first post, I mostly have always thought this was dodgy and though confirmation of such will not make me happy, I think it is best to know these things and I'll try not to cry!!!!!

Regards and many thanks for your help Glenn.

Jerry

[Jerry B]

The lack of a blood group is a good sign or so my research suggests, as most fakes have them as never issued tags are less desirable/valuable to collectors and if you are faking a tag it would be easy to add the blood group and increase it's value.

Regards,

Jerry

[Matt L]

Hi Jerry,

Actually, that disc is fine- it's a fairly common one in fact because it's unissued stock and a pile of them were found some years ago. 'A. u. E.' is the proper order for SS units- the Heer and Luftwaffe used 'E. u. A.', so presumably someone in the SS command figured they should be different. It's a way of spotting fakes- fakers don't realize there's a distinction and put 'E. u. A.' on their supposed SS discs sometimes. The lack of a Kompanie number isn't a problem either because this particular unit never has them- it seems to have used a central roll and the way we can tell is a letter being part of the serial number; it's basically another digit, although I can't say why another digit would have been any less efficient or appropriate. Since discs with the letter M are known and they could have at least 3 numbers, it means there were at least 13 000 of these discs made up, so it's definitely a Bataillon roll, not a Kompanie one. The lack of a blood group obviously fits with that as well- unissued means no blood group mark; were there one, I'd be concerned. And yes, steel is fine- earlier in the war the Germans introduced the Nirostahl (stainless steel) disc that is usually recognizable because it has extra large holes at the top, presumably to accomodate a chain rather than the usual fibre cord; later, however, as Glenn mentioned, it plain steel began to be used for making the regular style discs (nickel being a strategic metal that was in very short supply- even the manufacturers of the engines of the Me262 couldn't get enough). So you have a nice, if not terribly rare disc there.

[Jerry B]

Thanks very much Matt for the good news and the detailed and informative post. As I did more research I was thinking that it might be a good one, if not rare or desirable, but to have that confirmed by someone who knows what they are posting is something different and I thank you again.

Regards,

Jerry

[Glenn66]

and i managed to pick a good one and learn something at the same time. Double bonus!

[Jerry B]

and i managed to pick a good one and learn something at the same time. Double bonus!

Thanks again Glenn for all your help and input on this. The amount I discovered from you, reading old posts and from Matt was a real pleasure and new info is always good to have and I think I could spot obvious fakes in future. Maybe someday I'll get some more, I would certainly like to get one for a DAK unit.

Regards,

Jerry

[Matt L]

No problem Jerry, glad to help- especially when it's good news rather than bad It's too bad it's unissued but it's real and that's always cool.

[Jerry B]

No problem Jerry, glad to help- especially when it's good news rather than bad It's too bad it's unissued but it's real and that's always cool.

Its all good as far as I am concerned and hopefully I paid no more than it was worth. It is rare that I ask for opinions on this forum so getting good news when I did is great.

Regards,

Jerry