Matt...yet another tag

[SatansCabanaBoy]

What do you think of this one dude?
I am a little concerned becasue of the different styles of font.

[Matt L]

Nothing to worry about- that one's really very nice; it's a type of pre-stamped disc, where the primary unit is put on and then whatever Kompanie appropriate was marked later with the Stammrollennummer and blood group. In this case too the unit is one big stamp- this is pretty clear if you look at it closely as the letters are very close together, of even depth, and the long text is perfectly straight. By comparison even the short 'Stammb.' is a bit off- the S is in a slightly different position vertically than the rest of the letters (compare them on the two halves). I wish I knew why some units had a signle large stamp and others used letter sets, but there seems no pattern to judge anything from. It may have been a commanding officer personal choice, himself paying for the stamp or some such thing- perhaps a kind of look back at times where commanding officers made such choices of uniform style or acoutrements for his unit.

Anyway, I have no trouble with this disc- it looks perfectly original to me. It's from leichte Artillerie-Ersatz-und Ausbildungs-Abteilung 34, a light artillery replacement and training detachment (weapons up to 7.5cm were considered light, and 8.8cm and larger were heavy).

[SatansCabanaBoy]

See..i don't understand why they jammed all the info into one line...and then there is the two kinds of punches..well..three if you count the soldier numbers. I though it was very odd, now that you have me going through all my tags again

[SatansCabanaBoy]

This one, I assuming is a fake because there is no blood group?

[Laplander]

The IEB-tag looks good to me.
Present or missing bloodgroup-stamp is not a good way to decide whether the tag is real or fake.
I have quite a few tags without blood group and still looked upon as real by honorable members of this forum.
Please keep those pictures coming and let us all keep learning.

A few tags without blood group can be seen in my series of threads called: small group from Stalingrad
Best regards
Anders

[SatansCabanaBoy]

Any idea why the blood group would be left off..??

[Matt L]

See..i don't understand why they jammed all the info into one line...and then there is the two kinds of punches..well..three if you count the soldier numbers. I though it was very odd, now that you have me going through all my tags again

One line or multiple lines- what does that really matter? If its legible, one line makes for a simpler stamp which is cheaper I should think. And the single stamp for the constant information, which the main unit is, means discs can be marked quickly and inexpensively- then only the variable information, the Kompanie and serial number, need be done by hand with individual stamps, which of course wouldn't be the same. Nothing odd at all really...

[Matt L]

This one, I assuming is a fake because there is no blood group?

Nope, as Anders says, this one's just fine- interestingly it's another example of a single large stamp for the constant information and individual stamps for the variable.

Not having a blood group or having one means nothing in terms of a disc being real or not- they were only actually put on discs from mid-1941 on, so early war discs could lack them or, since blood typing requires an antibody serum to conduct, one might imagine a situation of supply problems affecting if the test could be done- I can easily see it being intended to be done at a later date and maybe just never happening. I've seen discs with a blood group scratched on or marked in some other improvised way suggesting perhaps other than usual circumstances surrounding the information being acquired (done in the field by a medical unit maybe?). It's doubtful a home replacement unit would just simply lack the proper stamps anyway, so the situations would be abnormal.

The simplest explanation in this case would be that the disc may never have been issued. Stocks were surely made and then the discs distributed as necessary. The serial number is quite high and given that the designation 'Infanterie' was changed to 'Grenadier' in late 1942, perhaps this disc was in the unissued pile and just not used since the unit became Grenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 474 and new discs would be necessary. It strikes me that it's unlikely that over 6000 men were trained in this single Kompanie in just 3 years given a Kompanie strength is relatively small. As I mentioned elsewhere, a field Kompanie was maximally about 295 men, but a training unit wouldn't have needed that man for sure- and even if recruits spent just six weeks in training and new classes were run through 12 months a year, only 24 would have passed and that'd need almost 300 men per class to even reach 6200. So my vote would be for simply unissued.

So, so far you're looking quite good- all real except the Gebirgsjäger...

[SatansCabanaBoy]

very cool...this is incredibly helpful

[SatansCabanaBoy]

btw...Thanks Laplander...I always thought that a sure thing was if there was no blood type, it was not a cool tag.