Original WWII German dog tags?

[kevin710]

Hi
Not sure if it's WWII one and what unit is it from. There is number "1961" on it. Any help will be appreciated.

[Gunny Hartmann]

Looks honest!..

[kevin710]

Hi Paul
Thanks again. I really appreciate your helps. Do you know what's its unit? thanks.

[Adrian Stevenson]

2nd Kompanie, Infanterie-Ersatz-Bataillon 474.

Infanterie-Ersatz-Bataillon 474 - Lexikon der Wehrmacht

Looks original to me.

Cheers, Ade.

[Matt L]

Yup, the Gunny and Ade are right.

And this could be another example of how sometimes every Kompanie had slightly different discs; I had one from IEB474 in my collection, but from the 4. (MG) Kompanie and it's noticably different:



See, they used the abbreviations 'Inf. Ers. Btl.', wheras the 2. Kompanie disc above just has 'I. E. B.' There's a fair difference in the Stammrollennummern, so it might be that they decided to simplify at some point, it's not necessarily that the 4. Kompanie and 2. Kompanie did things differently.

It's hard to tell but the letter stamps may be the same- but with only a couple of capital letters in common, that aren't of any particularly odd form, it's tough to tell. And although the '474's are obviously different, with no numbers in common, we can't tell if the Stammrollennummer set is the same or not.

[kevin710]

Ade: thanks again for your valuable information.
Matt: I really appreciate your expertise details. Your example looks have more historical value. As I know "1961" on my tag should be his number within the unit. However I wonder there were so many solider in one Kompanie or Bataillon. Maybe I was wrong.

[Matt L]

Well it's a replacement unit, not a field unit- so men are only there for however long their initial training period lasted, and then they went to field units and another group of recruits came in; the 1961st man was just in the I don't know- 10th or 12th group of trainees after the war started. Since it's 'Infanterie' it was issued before mid-October, 1942, as that's when the term 'Infanterie' was changed to 'Grenadier'; after that point it would be Grendier-Ersatz-Bataillon 474.

[kevin710]

Hi Matt
Thanks again for your great help. I am afraid my tag is less value than yours since it's not from field unit. I got it for $20. At least it's original

[Matt L]

Mine's not from a different unit- it's exactly the same; it's just a different Kompanie. It might be a tiny bit more valuable since it's the MG Kompanie and not just one of the other 3 regular rifle Kompanien, but that's all $20 is decent since yours is in nice shape.

[aghsmac1]

Here is mine from 4 MG Kompanie with many differences compared to Matt's erkennungsmarken from the same unit.
Cheers, aghs