Unfinished ? ( Blank Buckle Info)

[Wilhelm Saris]

Cheers Wim, very interesting mate, would have love to have visited the factory

The old Overhoff does not exist anymore, but the OLC marking does.
Their old director was Branscheid. I spoke with him a few times.
Now his daughter will have taken over business (Brigitte Branscheid,
as I think she is a daughter from the old director), she uses the OLC
marking. I guess they can't tell anything these days!

They have the know-how for producing, but not the "know-how"
from the past! This is what they produce for buckles and such!

[Wilhelm Saris]

It has always been my opinion that for the so-called "penal" buckle old blanks
were used from 1943. Stocks from this must have been found at Berg & Nolte
and at a later moment the "neutral/honeycomb" symbol was struck.
I think many do hardly know how a manufacturing process develops. I have
no better photographs, but from my old collection I can show some things
about the procedure.

Look at the second photo. Here one sees the procedure for the Bundeswehr
buckle, which was made by the lots by Overhoff. All this material was given
too me by mr. Branscheid from Overhoff and one of his closest employees,
mr. Hesse. I also got loads of Imperial buckles, which were stocked in
crates for many, many years.






The first photo shows the neutral, smooth buckle. With a leaflet from them
I can show more. I gave this leaflet to mr. Terence Baldwin, to include in
his 1980 and 1981 buckle-booklet (other images from leaflets and such also
came from me). As far as I remember he did not include this in the 1984
Patzwall-edition.



Have a look at the upper row buckles. So beware for the aluminum version
private forestry buckle. Many of them I see are post-war production!

In post 19 I do mention a letter. Here it is:

[Ben Evans]

Very very interesting Wim, also shows the sun burst design and a waring to all on the private forestry buckles, many thanks for sharing this Wim, great and invaluable piece of info IMO

[Ben Evans]

Gents, some very important and valuabe info on this thread so now been stuck, many thanks to all contributors