Interesting Disc

[Matt L]

Here's an interesting and quite rare disc:

15. Pionier-Kompanie Infanterie-Regiment 367

Why if it's just a regular Infanterie-Regiment is the disc a rare one? Because only a very, very few Regimenter had a 15. Kompanie- virtually all had only 14. The three regular Bataillone of an Infanterie-type Regiment each had 4 Kompanien, 3 Schützen (rifle) and 1 MG, which totals 12- the 13. Kompanie was the Infanterie-Geschütz Kompanie, and the 14. the Panzer-Abwehr/Panzerjäger Kompanie. But a small number had their own organic 15. Pionier Kompanie as well.

Note that one dumb mistake fakers make is to use numbers higher than 15 and that's an easy way to recognize a fake disc. There's no such thing as a 17. Kompanie

[wiaderny]

There wasn't 13./ in 13.SS-Totenkopfstandarte

[Matt L]

Well I guess this is one of the exceptions- or the disc is indeed a very good fake The reference for SS-Totenkopf-Standarte 13 (it's not listed as 13. SS Totenkopf-Standarte, so that too is perhaps odd) does list only 12 Kompanien, so a marking like this is strange- but the disc sure looks authentic. It's hard to imagine a faker would not only try to sell a half, which is worth far less than a whole disc, but a broken one at that- devaluing it even further. I would generally expect it's real and the reference is incorrect.

Care to elaborate on it wiaderny?

[wiaderny]

This one is original. I found some pics from the same coy to compare and it was exacly the same. It come from Heidelager Camp, near Debica, todays Poland. Regards

[Matt L]

Well there we are- a good exception showing that the references aren't the end-all, be-all in every case Since so much was lost in the terror bombing and general chaos as the war ended, it's not surprising to have incomplete records in some cases. Obviously there was a 13. Kompanie in SS-Totenkopf-Standarte 13, but somehow its records were not available to the compiler of the main references we use.

In truth a 13. Kompanie isn't unrealistic in any case, especially since an SS-Standarte wasn't a standard Infanterie-type Regiment; these odd ones aren't exactly covered by the rule.

I had no real doubts about the disc- I was sure it was authentic as soon as I saw it and only mentioned the oddities to be 100% accurate in my comments since I cannot immediately explain them.

Did you recover it yourself or know personally the person who did? And what reason is there for believing the one you compared it to is definitely authentic? Both of those can be useful for authenticating discs, under the proper circumstances.