Waffen SS Div. 'Nord' Disc

[alekss]

Greetings all,

I got this Waffen SS ID disc a while ago, however after doing some research I have reasons to suspect it might be bogus.

For one, the font used seems to be a red flag...

Any thoughts/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Aleks

[Kurlandkessel]

This is my Erkennungsmarke that was found in the Gumrak area. There is some wear in the holes...

The thing that I see with lots of fake Erkennungsmarke is that the holes in the disk never show any wear. I don't see any wear here with your disk...

[Matt L]

Hi Aleks,

Unfortunately, that one's definitely fake- it's a very well-known font some call the 'Rokas' type after a notorious ebaY seller. It has been around a long time though. The 'r' with the little hook on it, and the squashed-top '3' are easily recognizable. The disc has other problems too, not the least of which is that in the Waffen-SS, the proper order was 'Ausbildungs- und Ersatz', whereas in the Heer it was 'Ersatz- und Ausbildungs', so the dumb faker used the wrong one.

The absence of wear around the neck cord holes isn't really diagnostic- it's presence is simply an indication of a disc having been worn a certain way for a long time, but its absence can have all kinds of possible reasons that aren't negative. If it's carried in a leather pouch, for example, it would not move as much and thus probably wear rather less; or if a man carried it in a pocket instead of on a cord, it wouldn't wear at all; or if he only fought for a short time and was wounded, transferred out of the field or whatever, again there'd be little or no wear. I know of a specific case of the latter- a friend of my Oma's who emigrated to Canada at the same time was inducted into an Artillerie-Ersatz-Abteilung and received a disc, but because he was a trained electrician, and at some point before he actually went to the front, it was determined he was needed at home so he was discharged and his disc looks like new.

In truth wear, if real- because it is faked- is only a good feature to support more significant other good features; the lack of it isn't a bad one.

[alekss]

Thanks for your input gents, my suspicions about this one have been confirmed. It was the odd font that I recall seeing before, the unusually high number (22483) and the absence of any unit number that raised the red flags.

Matt L - thank you for the detailed and very informative explanation. I shall take this on board when looking at any Waffen SS ID disc in the future. I guess it's the fine details that the fakers usually miss that ultimately get them undone.

Cheers,

Aleks

[Matt L]

No problem Aleks. I showed close-up images of the 'Rokas' type fake in Dimas' thread about fakes: Erkennungsmarken Made After WW2- Fakes and I posted my own little thread about common fake fonts: https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/erken...k-about-16281/ , so you always have something quick to check; but I always recommend posting and asking about anything you might consider buying if you can't find a match in the sticky threads- they're certainly not the only fake fonts out there and I'd always prefer to help avoid a problem than confirm one exists...