Is this piece genuine, or suspect? Dienstglas button flap, WaA 170, your thoughts appreciated ;-)

[Doppelgänger]

This was on pair of BEH (Leitz) Dienstglas I picked up a while back, seller said he had no reason to believe it was repro, but I've never been able to make up my mind for sure...

Doesn't look like it was ever held down to a button, there isn't any very visible wear to the slot provided. The leather looks like it could be fairly old, the WaA 170 stamp looks like it could be genuine, this is for Alban Zeitz, 1939 per the list of WaA codes that I found online.









Any of your thoughts and opinions appreciated, tx ;-)

[gel65]

The leather looks new to me and the light grey color is not a good sign to me

[Doppelgänger]

The leather is black, you mean the steel pins being gray?

[gel65]

Well from the pictures it looks like it was grey which made me think of more west german, based on the color being black I would say that it is probably authentic, the light made it appear like it was grey sorry to confuse you

[Walkwolf]

If it's a repro, it's a very good one. The holes that the pins go
through are nicely worn as one might expect, but I suppose
this could be achieved by bending the tabs a lot, or using it
while reenacting over several years.........

[Flak bunker]

Been collecting binos for many many years,I have had dozens of button flaps never seen one waffen stamped before,most have the maker on one side of the button hole and then a date on the other side , ie.beh 1943 or bmk 1942 etc the rain covers were waffen stamped occasionally mainly on the zeiss KM models but the stamp is extremely small

[Doppelgänger]

It's definitely always been a 50/50 for me, I wish i could figure it out conclusively one way or the other. Erring on the side of caution, it would be a fake of course...

[Sir Payne]

The steel pins are original I am sure, similar ones are used on German helmet chinstraps. They look the exact same, and show the same type of period wear. The leather has me leaning toward original as well.

[Doppelgänger]

Thank you Sir ;-)

For your viewing pleasure I provide a pic of this button flap on a very fine pair of Waffen proofed Carl Zeiss Jena glasses. Possibly the finest pair of Dienstglas I've ever owned! The build quality and image quality are amazing, and I'm fussy on glasses. I just sold a pair of 20 yr old Zeiss 10x40b last year that I didn't particularly care for, as well as a pair of similar vintage Leica's, both lasted only a short time on eBay at six hundies a pop... But I was really amazed looking through these. For being totally not coated, they really are pretty amazing! They're in an amazing state of preservation as well, must have been captured early on, or stayed away from heavy combat, one or the other...

[Flak bunker]

Nice set of bins though,most pre war and wartime binoculars are in the whole a lot better constructed and optically better than their modern counterparts