Marine Navy

[Buckle1]

OK, Good points and yes I was lkooking for a gold buckle. With that said I Still believe that the issue marine buckles were all Seiper & Sohn produced, as they were the only producers of the smooth merury guilded Marine buckles,.As for the other buckles they very well could be Marine but not issue buckles by the Marine stores but rather re-isssued and re-painted or not, Wehrmacht buckles to re-assigned troops from the Army to the Marine branch. Also what about the blue steel Coastal Art. buckles with Marine marked tabs.
If these are not Marine mrked there is some question as to wether or not they are coastal art. or just a late blue painted buckles for the army.
Also the gray/black painted smooth steel Weimar buckles are suppossedly Marine as well but could they be a type of coastal defense buckle as well. I have seen these with tabs mrked with the Marine property proofs.
An interesting thread. sorry to run on so long.

Bill

[Nick C]

Hello Bill,

Thank you for the information. Too bad about mine!
I did some search regarding the pebbled KM buckles. I've found a thread on WAF, see post 3:

Kriegsmarine, Imperial marine, 50 m/m Colonial / Navy Buckles. - Wehrmacht-Awards.com Militaria Forums

Marc states these are Belgium-made and scarce.

Kind regards,
Nick

[DUJAILAH]

Some great buckles chaps I'm gonna have to get a couple KM.

[Guido]

I agree totally, that Sieper was the only company wich produced a smooth gold Alu buckle for the KM! We know further some fire gilded steel examples, a well known maker for these is for instance C.T.Dicke.
The KM had also units in fieldgrey uniforms, like the coastal artillery and they wore fieldgrey buckles (as well as gold buckles)! Apart from the KM approval stamp there is no difference between a simple fieldgrey Heer buckle and a fieldgrey KM buckle. This is also the reason that it is impossible to say if a blue "GOTT MIT UNS" buckle belongs to the coastal artillery or not. Due to the lack of a leathertongue, we are not able to make a classification. The blue colour is a general late war attribute to Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe buckles!

About the two piece KM buckle (if pebbled or not) is to say that there are some examples out there wich look very good and period. But unsettled are the following questions:
Wich type of uniform was worn with a gold parade buckle? (So far I know, the enlisted KM parade uniform was worn without a belt)
Where can we find a rule for this?
I personally give some gold two piece buckles a chance, even though we have no evidence for these.
@Nick: In the abstract not impossible that your buckle is a real KM buckle, but the probability that it is a golden painted Heer buckle is scores of times higher. The shown images of your buckle emphasize my assumption.

Regards,
Guido

[Ben Evans]

I would say in my honest opinion that it is indeed a two piece Heer parade buckle that has been sprayed gold at some point.

[Tom Bennett]

Well i have read all the threads and examined all the photos of your magneficent KM buckles
All i can say is i want one asap

Tom

[Nick C]

Guido & Ben, thank you for your opinion regarding my buckle.
Searching for a second KM buckle like mine, didn't work out. I didn't find a similar one. So I also assume it's a Heer buckle painted in gold.
On the other hand, it does have a logical wear in my opinion. If you look at the pictures, it has wear on the places you'd expect on a worn buckle. But reproductions are getting better and better, I know.

Too bad about it. But fortunately this buckle was in a lot, so I didn't pay the price for an original KM buckle!

Kind regards,
Nick

[Ben Evans]

Hey Nick, it is still an original buckle! But not KM thats all

[Nick C]

I know, my mistake for using the word reproduction
Thanks for the help!