DDR Border Sign

[Watchdog]

Following on from Steves original post I thought it might be of interest to compare two Grenzschilde from my collection;

The first is the same as Steve's. One of the lot turned up in storage as NOS ready to replace old damaged or missing items on a maintenance basis. These were subsequently packaged as souvenir items to sell to the public. I expect this was done under the auspices of the Treuhandanstalt immediately after the demise of the DDR.

That the included certificate of authenticity is signed by a representative of the foundry that made them suggests to me that the stock was held on site rather than elsewhere within the border control apparatus. Also, certainly from looking at my example I think that they were stored without the threaded holes in the mounting lugs and these would have been added by the "end user". The holes now present appear as if the bore size and bottoming tap used to create the thread were not quite compatible. This wouldn't matter if they were never going to be fixed to a border post and the holes are just for visual effect. The mounting lugs themselves appear to have functioned as the risers during casting as there are no traces of risers being removed elsewhere.



The second was recovered in the Potsdam area by a former senior officer in Grenzregiment 44. It is very clean and I suspect it reposed in an office etc for at least part of it's existence. Some anecdotal provenance came with it but as we always say, "buy the item not the story" which is what I did.

This item is as you would expect visually identical on the obverse. On the reverse there is a casting void coinciding with the Staatswappen wreath of the obverse. This is a standard material saving feature of the casting process. The fixing lugs are drilled and tapped for (I haven't measured it) an M10 size bolt and there is some "browning" from the former presence of a bolt. These items also display signs of two risers from the casting process close to one long edge.



Whether NOS packaged items or older used pieces these are scarce, historical and collectible items from a very relevant period of history and I am very pleased to have them.

As usual, all comment is most welcome.

Regards

Mark

[HARRY THE MOLE]

A good while back, there was a border sign up for grabs on eBay Uk that was the same as your second type Mark... the dealer wanted something like £400 for it! I only have the one DDR border sign, but I have another from the other side of the 'fence' so to speak. This was purchased privately... and with a story attached to it as well. There is no way of knowing if Marco Lehmann was telling me porkies, but for what I paid for it, it really doesn't matter... and there is no doubting its authenticity - although the reflective properties do not really show in the pictures. I'm only showing again for those who may have missed the original thread.

Cheers,
Steve

[Watchdog]

[QUOTE=HARRY THE MOLE;2047126]A good while back, there was a border sign up for grabs on eBay Uk that was the same as your second type Mark... the dealer wanted something like £400 for it! [QUOTE]

Yes, some sellers do ask outrageous sums but I did not and would not pay anywhere near that!
The BGS signs like yours are often offered for stupidly high sums so it's good to know that you got it at a reasonable price. I wanted the Grenzschild as an icon of my own experiences really so I was pleased to get it from an area I used to work near. Having said that, all these things are only going to appreciate so maybe one day my kids will be suddenly interested in "Dad's old army junk" ��.

Regards

Mark

[Watchdog]

Bump!

During my customary routine "curating" of my collection I have a habit of randomly researching the current "rarity" and collectability of less mainstream items. Today I was looking at these "Grenzschilde" and amongst literally hundreds of images found online I could not find a single genuine example currently for sale or even recently discussed. There were one or two fakes but less than ten anyway.
As an aside I did find a couple of old threads on other forums that contained some really odd statements and most who claimed to have genuine items did not show the reverse (major red flag there)

Does anyone have any thoughts or current status info on these?

Mine are not going anywhere, I'm just curious.

Regards

Mark

[HARRY THE MOLE]

As you have said Mark, loads of replica's for sale. So I suppose the current market value of a genuine one will be down to how much someone wants one, and how much they are prepared to pay. Once we left the EU, my collecting of DDR items stopped. With the import duty added to the price it didn't make financial sense to carry on collecting it.

Cheers,
Steve