General Staff Badge on Ebay, Late War Production ?

Here are photos of an interesting General Staff Badge currently being offered for sale on Ebay. I found the badge to be interesting in that the wreath is cast which usually indicates a cast copy. In this case, I think the badge is authentic. Perhaps a late war production. Any thoughts ?

Reverse side

Close up of wreath reverse side. Look at all the metal slag. This wreath is cast. Yet all looks 100 % period original.

Close up of front

Another close up of front

The coat of arms to my eyes, looks to be a transfer?? and not enameled like the original.

Kevin in Deva

During WW2, The enameled shield was indeed a transfer. A decal that was baked into the enamel. Prior to WW2, the shield was hand painted on the enamel prior to being baked and they vary from badge to badge. Today, there is a dealer in Bucharest that has duplicated the decal transfer by using a high quality copy machine and then applying a plastic cover over the paper copy. This can be quickly spotted as you can test by digging your finger nail or sharp object into the shield. The plastic is soft and will leave a scratch and indentation dent.

Hallo REGAL UNIFORMA COLECTOR



If the shield was a transfer applied to the badge before a clear enamel was placed over

the top, during manufacture, would it not be reasonable to expect that any damage to

the enamel, would chip of pieces of the transfer?

What looks strange here is the fact that this one looks like to have no enamel left at all

over the transfer, yet relatively minor damage to the coat of arms!!

Kevin in Deva

So what you are saying is that the damage to the artwork is beneath the clear which is applied over the coat of arms decal transfer ?

In my oppinion the badge is OK ! Maybe assembled from parts from different badges in the backyard of the Military Academy, but the badge is ok !

I would tend to agree. I also think that the badge is genuine but probably produced at the later part of the war.

No! I was wondering, if hot enamel was applied over the transfer, and this enamel was subsequently removed / damaged later, that, there would be serious damage to the original transfer. I would expect to see more of the transfer damaged, this one appears to have suffered slight damage to the edges.

Kevin in Deva.