Fallschirmschützenabzeichen

[Kradmelder]

Hi Ned,

yes you are right regarding the eagle. Had another look and the eagle is looking right for JFS.

Was just wondering a bit about the uncommon good condition from the badge. Normaly they are coming mostly with cracks.

Regards
Joe

[big ned]

Hi Ned,

yes you are right regarding the eagle. Had another look and the eagle is looking right for JFS.

Was just wondering a bit about the uncommon good condition from the badge. Normaly they are coming mostly with cracks.

Regards
Joe

Hi Joe,

I agree the condition of the wreath especially is remarkable as nearly all known badges have a badly cracked/deteriorated appearance due to what some call "zinc pest" and that's correct, but they nearly always refer to it as being down to bad storage and environmental conditions such as humidity levels.

I think that it's more elemental than that in the case of the JFS wreaths that are found on their very rare Fallschirmschützenabzeichen. The problem I believe starts before the enviromental/storage conditions arrive, and is in this case is caused mainly by the concentration of impurities in the lead content and the manufacturing conditions at the time that causes the crystalite form of the poor quality zinc alloy to break down.

As these batches of zinc alloys commonly known at this stage of the war as "Kriegsmetall" or "monkey metal" were of different quality on a day to day basis, this explains why some badges have survived well when others the same have turned into cracked, flaky, pitted examples that are often found today.

Therefore I think it's very possible that this particular badges wreath was from a "better" batch of alloy than that found on some of the very few other JFS Fallschirmschützenabzeichen currently known of in the collecting sphere. That's just my personal opinion of course.

Regards, Ned.

[Wewelsburg]

Hey kemi.. are you bidding on the item? Give us an update

[kemi]

Thank you all that have replay on this thread ! I have learn so much form all the comments! I'm sad to say I did not win the badge! It's now up in over 600 euro!

[Wagriff]

A nice condition badge that I can't really pick too many problems with, aside from the pin, of course, but 600 Euro would be the top end value, in my opinion.