As promised, finally getting around to addressing a couple of points raised earlier:
This eagle badge was definitely not made around 1925. This pattern is of late 1930’s vintage, as are all eagle badges marked “BM”. You had previously cited the "Warunki techniczne materiałów wojskowych" publication of the Dep. Intendentury. MsWojsk. This document issued in 1933 specified the alpacca alloy composition for eagle badges (14% nickel, 66% copper, 20% zinc). It was at this time that eagle production moved away from brass to white metal, either stamped entirely in the alloy, or in some cases plated. This was typically denoted by the letters “BM” applied by some manufacturers to their eagles, and was also found on other uniform components produced in the latter half of the 1930’s such as belt buckles, officer cap visor rims, etc. (an example of each posted below)
I offer this bit of supporting evidence for the production period of these Skarnik and Fiszbein eagles. Pictured below is an original, unaltered and complete wz.35 infantry officer’s rogatywka cap from my collection. It was obtained from the family of the officer. It is dated on the inside of the sweatband May 2, 1938 (a known practice of this particular hat maker, J. Miron, Wilno). The original eagle is a Skarnick and Fiszbein product of the same pattern as yours, bearing the familiar anchor mark. This distinct eagle pattern (curiously also produced by GUZPOL) is commonly found on wz.35 officer rogatywka caps of the latter 1930’s. They are not found as original equipment on earlier pattern rogatywki, which came equipped with earlier type wz.19 eagle badges.
The majority of hat eagles, especially from the first half of the IIRP period do not have maker marks. Very little production information has survived from pre-WW2 manufacturers, so many of the surviving eagles remain unknown as to their origin. This fact is widely acknowledged in reference literature on the topic. Secondly, in contrast to regimental and commemorative badges, nuts (and washers) when used as a fastening method on eagles were rarely marked with the badge maker’s name. And by their nature they are easily interchangeable as post diameters and thread pitches were common between many eagles. So this is not too reliable for deriving much useful information regarding a badge maker or production date.
It was an eagle that I hadn’t investigated at time of that post over two and a half years ago. I may have just acquired it back then, and was observing that it had very similar design details to the known Alavoine it was pictured with. I correctly identified it in subsequent post #432 where this same eagle is pictured on the top row second from left.
Regards,
Tony
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