Help to identify possible fake ss id discs (or not ?)

[VICTOR1966]

Hello fellows !
i don´t have much experience in ss id discs and i need help to
learn more about this kind of pieces: I posted some photos of ss discs ...
Could anyone help me to identify possible fakes ?
Thanks a lot !!

[Matt L]

Welcome to the forum

I do hope you don't own all of these since they're possibly all fakes. The easiest way to recognize a fake is by matching the font- either letters or numbers- to one that's known to be bad (we have a sticky thread showing examples of several fake fonts), or, such as is the case here, by seeing the same font on discs supposedly from different units; one important thing to know about Erkennungsmarken is that virtually every single unit had unique stamps, thus letters and numbers should always be at least a little different. Fakers, on the other hand, make many different unit discs with the same stamps.

In the case of these discs, I found the Sigrunen of several appear to be identical:



This means all the discs that have the same Sigrunen are very likely fakes. Those are the Postschutz, the JR5 Lett. Frw. Div., both the Wikings, the SS Pz Ers Abt, and probably the SS Pz Ers Btl as well. You can see too the 'Frw.' on all those discs which have it is the same, the 'PZ ERS' appears to be the same, and the capital and lower-case letters appear to be the same on those which have them- even the numbers of some are the same. So it seems every one of those discs is fake. There are also problems with the text, and the unit titles as well. One has to look at all these things to spot fakes.

[Gunny Hartmann]

I think the postschutz is the biggest give away, there seems to be no corrosion in the stampings which suggests it has been stamped onto a corroded surface!..

[VICTOR1966]

Thanks a lot dear fellows ! I don´t buy none of this ! A friend mine received the
purpouse of this id ss discs and don´t have sure about the originality ! Thanks again!!

[Matt L]

Oh good- I'm so glad these aren't yours; it's tough to give someone the bad news that all the discs they ask about are fakes.

[Matt L]

I think the postschutz is the biggest give away, there seems to be no corrosion in the stampings which suggests it has been stamped onto a corroded surface!..

But there's a lot of force applied over a very small area when a letter or number is stamped, and generally surface corrosion products are flaky and not very solid so new stamping on an already corroded surface should most often result in at least a bit of loss around the stamping too (and on the back)- that's the 'halo' that's said to show this is what has been done; there's none of that here. I'd find it very surprising if there were just enough force to make the letters but cause no other damage to the patina.

What seems a likely alternative explanation to me is chemical 'aging' with a thin film whose surface tension prevents the fluid from getting down into the thin impressions of the stamps- then you'd get corrosion all up to the marks, but not in them. The weird spotted appearance might also suggest a thin coating of some acidic solution- given that thin layers of aqueous fluids tend to bead up on metal surfaces.

[Gunny Hartmann]

But there's a lot of force applied over a very small area when a letter or number is stamped, and generally surface corrosion products are flaky and not very solid so new stamping on an already corroded surface should most often result in at least a bit of loss around the stamping too (and on the back)- that's the 'halo' that's said to show this is what has been done; there's none of that here. I'd find it very surprising if there were just enough force to make the letters but cause no other damage to the patina.

What seems a likely alternative explanation to me is chemical 'aging' with a thin film whose surface tension prevents the fluid from getting down into the thin impressions of the stamps- then you'd get corrosion all up to the marks, but not in them. The weird spotted appearance might also suggest a thin coating of some acidic solution- given that thin layers of aqueous fluids tend to bead up on metal surfaces.

Yup, sound like a better explanation!..