HJ; M5 Belt buckle

[Chad William]

I was waiting for someone to catch the tag.. thank you Wilhelm.. These are SA cloth tags.. It is my opinion that the tag is original to the piece and although it is not the correct tag; it is period and original. I have about 10 examples of these tags on buckles. Some of which are ink stamped to the manufacturer as well. We must remember that the RZM tags were provided to the manufacturer by the RZM.. my thought is that the proper red and white tags were back ordered and the RZM improvised by using what was on hand giving the SA cloth tags to the manufacturers until the shortage was fixed.. notice on the buckle shown that the tag is ink stamped M4/115... same manufacturer (m4/115=M5/276) . this helps qualify this tag.. I have seen these afixed in this manner (on the prongs) and also just being stuck to the reverse of the buckle as well.
thanks for sharing
Chad

[Wilhelm Saris]

Hello Chad,

For me it is a maybe and of course it might have been done in the "old days",
but I personally have seen German dealers (not only one, but more) adding
these blue tags to buckles in the mid seventies, as lots of these tags were found
in those days. The first one I have seeing doing this was at the big show at
Stuttgart, Germany. Another one I have esen doing this at a Militaria-show at
Düsseldorf in the same year as the first one!

Most dealers then even did not know that the blue tags were for cloth insignia.

[David North]

The blue RZM tax label attached to certain HJ buckles is indeed an anachronism and a contradiction to the greater order of things, however there are perhaps two odd points worthy of gentle reminder. HJ is not my forte and my apologies in advance if I have perhaps missed something obvious. For myself, I have only ever seen two makers who and for whatever reason, chose or were forced to use blue over red. Klein und Quenzer, Idar-Oberstein and Hermann Aurich, Dresden. No other, although perhaps other makers similarly employed the blue label. It appears that the K u Q label and which incidentally is printed with the correlating M4/115, is often found pierced on the buckle claws. The Aurich example however and which does not enjoy the dignity of a makers recognition code on the label, is well and truly stuck down with a vengeance.

Odd that we see only two makers with the blue label attached to their HJ's.

Odd that the Aurich HJ label could not be easily detached post sale and as I think was required by the RZM.

Regards,

David