Infantry Officer shoulder boards

[maximus71]

Hi all,
I got my first set of shoulder boards today, my question is how do you know if they are 100% original as far as the numbers go, compared to someone just finding a plain set and sticking pips and numbers on them, im sure that happens alot to add to the resell value, either way they still look nice, hope you like.

[Jerry B]

They look from the extra holes to have had a different arrangement of insignia on there at some time, but that might just be because he was promoted and had to move them. I have a plain set for artillery for sale in the classifieds section and you can see they never had pips or numbers on them but as you mention, it would be easy to pimp them, whilst I have some other sets and they also have had the insignia moved about on them and as I posted, he was probably promoted or as on one set of KM boards I have, the trade insignia has been removed.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Adding extra numerials etc is sometimes done: but often people make the mistake of making up units which never existed. At least in your case there was an Inf Regt 134:

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/...nter/IR134.htm

I don't like the way some are a bit crookedly applied. Original examples often "sink" a little into the board. Often worth checking if the bullion of the strap is cleaner under the numbers which you would expect if they have been there for around 70 years.

Cheers, Ade.

[maximus71]

Thanks Ade, thats a good point, I pulled out the BIG magnifying glass and I checked them out further, and it appears the numbers are period/original, just not original to the shoulder boards, the wear underneath matches the wear overall, and like you said, they dont really look like they have been in one place for 70+ years. I will chalk it up as a maybe, which can probably be said for most like this, oh well at least the unit exsisted and they still look cool, thanks for the help

[James N]

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to make a display of Heer/Luftwaffe shoulderboard singles showing descending ranks from Oberst to Leutnant ( I also made one for the enlisted ranks ) and figured the Oberst would be the costliest. Of course, there was always the possibility of getting a Major or Oberstleutnant and "promoting" it, but I really didn't want to do that if possible. When I found this one in an eBay "store" at a reasonable price I got it; you can see from its listing pictures that it WAS originally an Artillerie Oberst that had somehow "lost" its pips because you can still see the "shadow", not only the imprints they made in the cord and holes from the prongs on back, but also how much brighter the silver is where they had been! Next I found some pips and replaced them; the final result can be seen at top left in the shadowbox.

As a corrolary, you could CAREFULLY remove the pips/numbers and look for evidence of soiling/aging on yours.