Newsletter No. 227 October 12, 2016
Note: We are presenting in this posting an article by Christian Jürs.. Mr. Jürs has a large collection of original German military decoration documents and is currently preparing a heavily illustrated book on the subject. ADR
Wehrmacht and SS Orders and Decoration documents
by Christian Jürs
Called by the Germans ‘Verleihungs-urkunden’ or Presentation documents, when a member of the German military was presented with a decoration, he received a document attesting to this.
These documents were printed on paper and were usually 150×210 mm in size. The awardees name and unit were typed onto the paper (hand-lettered in some cases) and the document was signed by authorized personnel and most generally had the so-called ‘Dienstsiegel’ or unit stamp, on the lower left side.
It should be noted that original documents were always printed on paper which did not contain chemical whiteners and are non-reactive to an ultra-violet light (or black light). As paper whiteners were not used until 1951, any document purporting to be of an earlier date that reacts positively to the black light should be considered as not authentic.
We show here five sample original documents.
The first is a presentation paper for the second class (25) of the Panzerkampfabzeichen. It is 150×210 mm in size and is for a member of the Panzer Regiment ‘Großdeutschland.’
The second, upper left, is a presentation paper for the Iron Cross 2nd Class. It is 150×210 mm in size and is for a Captain in the Panzer-Division ‘Hermann Göring.’
The third, upper right, is a presentation paper for the Honor Roll clasp of the Kriegsmarine. It is 150×210 mm in size and is ink-signed by Grand Admiral Dönitz.
The fourth, lower left, is a presentation paper for the Fliegererinnernugsabzeichen or Pilots Commemoration badge. It is 150×210 mm in size and is signed by the head of the Luftwaffe Personnel Department.
The fifth, lower right, is a presentation paper for the Krimschild or Crimea Shield. It is 150×210 mm I size and has the stamped signature of Field Marshal von Manstein.
German 
English (United States)
2 thoughts on “Newsletter No. 227 October 12, 2016”
I just sent you a list of over 5,000+ collectors and dealers world-wide. In the US, the UK, France, Russia and a few in China. If you prepare an ad page I can set it up so you can do a mass mailing to every one of these prospective readers. From poking around on the Internet, I note that many dealers have lost huge money in lost sales thanks to your warnings and many collectors, if you want to call them that, have seen important items in their collections reduced to 0 value, again because of your work. I think there is a lot more to be done, both in the States and in Europe to make the real collector aware of the fakes and those who sell them. The dagger market is particularly vulnerable and I have lists of firms who make fake daggers (mostly in India and China) and then the crooked dealers who, for example, will gold-plate a standard Army dagger and try to pass it off as a “General’s Dagger” to the sheep via glowing articles on their Internet sites. This is a ripe area for you to get into, especially in Russia which, from a dagger dealer’s point of view is a fools paradise.
Good luck!
Misha
Thanks for the list. We keep expanding and the workload is increasing. One irate collector (irate at the crooks, not at me) claimed I had cost the crooks seven million dollars in lost sales over the past two years. Maybe I can increase this number but if I do, who will go to the MAX or SoS shows anymore? Who will want to possess Himmler’s hand-carved throne? A ‘Feldherrnhalle’ dagger with an ivory grip? A genuine ‘Anzio pattern’ camouflaged helmet? Eventually the for-profit collecting will die and then the marketplace will be full of legitimate collectors who won’t need fake forums to know what to buy or trade. These forums are nothing but sales encouragers to make the frightened and stupid of the collecting world feel secure with their purchases. After all, they have a wall full of CoAs and that makes a huge difference. And yes, we are getting all kinds of input on fake daggers starting with old Atwood and moving upwards through other “really informative books” filled with fake daggers and swords. These are easy to expose and believe me, we are going to. Thanks again, Arthur.