Kriegsmarine coastal artillery BEVO breast eagle question

[3986QMTC]

Hi everyone,

I have wanted to get a Kustenartillerie breast eagle on the dark green background for a while,* and finally got one but noticed that some of the small details differ from the common herd. I am wondering what some of you might think about this one WRT originality?

The "feathers" on the eagle's body are not as evenly and nicely spaced and the wreath between the talons is a bit different... just to cite two things different than many BEVO examples.

Subtle differences... one wonders how many outfits were making these and how much production might have varied from run to run.

Regards,

G. Kelly

ETA: I apologize for the top two photos looking like the background fabric has a vertical moire pattern; they look correct when enlarged.

* My 2/47 Inf uncle mailed one back home in the Summer of 1944 (post-Cherbourg); it and an interesting letter went missing about 30 years ago.

[MarcoPennisi]

Measuring this specimen may be advisable as well as testing the quality of the ribbon backing and of the thread. Anyway, differing details are absolutely normal. Just browse through period magazines of the industry (Schwert und Spaten, Uniformen.Markt and Deutsche Uniformen Zeitschrift) and you’ll learn how many enterprises were devoted to making woven insignia in the Third Reich.

[3986QMTC]

Measuring this specimen may be advisable as well as testing the quality of the ribbon backing and of the thread.

It appears to have essentially the same dimensions as another coastal artillery breast eagle I have (on a field-gray background); a set of vernier calipers show the two as very close in measurements.

A small piece clipped from one of the loose threads did not melt, but rather charred to ash (for lack of a better description).

Regards,

G. Kelly

ETA: I did a black light test and this eagle passed, though that is probably not much of an indicator.

[3986QMTC]

The more I look at it, the more I find... now I'm not too sure about the upper arm on the swastika either.

I'm just not convinced of it's authenticity at this point, even if it is better looking than many of the strange but original KM brustadlers out there. I guess I will put his one in the "suspicious, possibly spurious" box and keep an eye out for a different one.

G. Kelly

[Fred Green]

Hello,

It is a very nice original CA eagle on dark green. No worries here.

Fred

[3986QMTC]

Hello,

It is a very nice original CA eagle on dark green. No worries here.

Fred

Thank you very much, Fred!

G. Kelly

[Neil Hever]

The "dots" on the swastika are usually a good indicator. I agree with Fred - he has a good eye. NH

[3986QMTC]

I am grateful for the opinions and the knowledge on this forum. Every time I think I get a handle on some item, a variant pops up and sets me back a bit.

At the cost of a bit of thread drift... when I was about 10 or twelve years old, my motor vehicle maintenance officer uncle dug out a flag to show me, and he mentioned that he had gotten it out of a German "radio truck" that had been deliberately damaged and abandoned somewhere in western France.* When he passed away some years later, I found the flag still in the same place he returned it to. It was a one-sided aerial recognition flag with grommets at the corners, and to this day I have not seen one for sale that matched it in every particular.

Were it not for the fact that I know its provenance beyond doubt, I might wonder about whether it was fake or just a variant.

G. Kelly

*Almost two decades after my uncle passed, his wife died; amongst her papers was a long "what I did for the last three years" letter my uncle had written to her from occupied Germany, and it mentioned running across some trucks in France that had had their radiators holed by an axe or something similar. It also mentioned picking up some souvenir "German money" that his men found buried where they bivouac'd… which probably explains some of the coins he gave me when I was in short pants.