Wehrmacht civilian employee pin - is this a typical variant?

[3986QMTC]

Ruptured Duck is currently selling one of these as a Police/Customs (Zoll) Stick-pin for $55....But yours appears to be of higher quality....
cheers, Glenn

The one I've got is almost devoid of the silver finish but the metal is extremely smooth, with no visible wear and no trace of zinc pest. It has places where the metal almost looks "smashed" down in places (particularly the "radiale" of the right wing), but I don't think it was done post-production. In a nutshell, it strikes me as being another item churned out cheap and fast... which it may have been. These devices are fairly small - about 30mm wide x 19mm high - so they look pretty good until one magnifies them!

(Like so much else in life.)

Another militaria site has a thread on these badges that has pictures of a very nice (presumably aluminum rather than zinc-based) variant with much better attention to the die-making. Some German sites seem to have them available as well, many more or less using the "Abzeichen fur Angestellte and Arbeiter bei Heer, etc" terminology. Others say "police, " etc, so for now it reamins a minor mystery.

Regards,

G. Kelly

[StuG III]

Nice pin, I have the horizontal pin version. Was told that it was definitely for Civilians in the employ of the Wehrmacht, whether male or female, I don't know.

Tom

[3986QMTC]

Here is another version of this stickpin, but in aluminum. Compared to the original subject of the thread, the dimensions are virtually identical but the weight is considerably less, and the pin is both shorter and without "rifling."

Regards,

G. Kelly