Totenkopf Rings - Genuine or Fake ???

[lintball71]

Hi guys,

Found these in a toolbox i bought from a garage sale of a young jewish guy. The toolbox was his great grandfathers. There was also two cigarette cases, a stamp thing and two sheets of stamps, all german nazi stuff.

Name looks like its Lohmann and date is 29.5.42. Cannot see the join mark behind the skull.

Name is H Flick and date is 01.12.34. It also has RZM in a circle, 900 in a rectangle and SS next to that.

Just want to confirm authenticity, if they are real I will sell them as they should be with a collector or someone who will give them the respect they deserve.

Let me know if you need any more pictures or details.

Thanks all ! ! !

Linton.

[lintball71]

How do I put a picture up ?

[tempelhof]

hit "go advanced" under the reply box you are typing in as you correspond. scroll down and you will see the option.

the ring, with marks as you describe, does not sound promising.

[octavian]

from the description alone, i would say its 99.9% fake.

[Wagriff]

Hello Linton, 1. I had the original Lohmann ring and I know where I sold it to, so I doubt very much if this is the original that somehow got lost and ended up in a toolbox somewhere. 2. The ring with SS and RZM and 900 is a fake. They did Not mark rings with SS runes and neither the RZM. So sorry.....but photos are not necessary. They are both not genuine.

[SteveR]

Sure get a lot of new posters with SS rings found in obscure places with a great story.

[Glenn66]

Another fishing expedition perhaps?

[HPL2008]

Not that I am an expert on SS Honor Rings, but I know enough to understand two very basic, important rules that are worth remembering:

1. Any ring (SS or otherwise) with RZM markings is fake. There were no RZM-controlled rings of any kind at any time.

2. All SS Honor Rings bore the same kind of inscription: "S. lb." [= "Seinem lieben"], followed by the recipient's surname and the date of bestowal, followed by the facsimile signature "H. Himmler". Any SS Honor Ring bearing other marks (silver content marks, manufacturer marks, RZM marks...) is fake.

[big ned]

Hello Linton, 1. I had the original Lohmann ring and I know where I sold it to, so I doubt very much if this is the original that somehow got lost and ended up in a toolbox somewhere.

Hi William,

In that case you'd know that the bestowal date of 29.5.42 was not found on any Ehrenring EVER. The date is completely bogus. I personally think that is more worthy of note than if it was found in a toolbox or not when it comes to unequivocal proof of a faked ring.

Would you by chance have some photo's of this ring you can show here, complete with a correct bestowal date, as the only example I have been able to find with the name 'Lohmann' is a well known fake? The year 1942 is rather uncommon in genuine TK ring terms, there being only around 20 odd known to exist, non of which, as far as I am aware are inscribed 'Lohmann', yet there are thousands of fake ones with the above bogus date out there. Confusing.

Regards, Ned.

[Wagriff]

Hello Ned, I have no clue just what the date on the Lohmann ring was. I do remember, though, as I said, that it ended up in the collection of Dave Rome over in Michigan. Dave, back in the day(this was maybe 35 years ago or so) was a Very serious collector of the Honor Rings and had probably the largest collection in North America at the time that I knew of. The name "Lohmann", did, indeed, exist in HR's, and I imagine that this particular ring may well have been the wellhead of the flood of fakes. Pure guess, of course, but the incorrect date on the fakes could possible be deliberate? It would be like making replica rare coins and incorporating a tiny but recognizable "mark" on them to show they were not genuine? I've never looked into it, but I wonder if Dave has since passed and his collection may have ended up in the possession of someone who has used it to collect names, etc from? My particular "Lohmann" ring came straight from Joe Pankowski, who I've known for longer than I want to think about. He's one of North America's very well known SS experts and has been for decades since he came back from the Army as a young man in the early 60's. I imagine that Bob Coleman could tell you a few things about him as well. I've had 3 HR over the years but the Lohmann name is the only one that stuck in my head. Back in the 60's era, there was no such thing possible to look up names and numbers, so nobody cared much what the name was on anything. With the advance of computers, the internet and newly sorted archival papers, so much has changed today from 40-50 years ago, but how was a person to know back then? Nobody photographed anything(not a whole lot of point in it-unless for insurance purposes, and nobody really insured much back then either-good luck asking an insurance company in 1963 to cover "a bunch of old Nazi stuff"...)