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How German Rings and
Silver Insignia Were Made
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It has come to our attention that several of our rings that we acquired in Stuttgart, Germany (go to “About Our Rings and Silver Insignia”) have been copied by nefarious individuals without our permission. Some of these rings are sold as authentic by these scoundrels who, in essence, are mere plunderers. Other forgers are selling them as “good” copies. Actually with the methods used by these bandits this will be impossible. They invariably use the lost-wax casting method to produce their pirated attempts. Therein lies the difference. The authentic rings that we feature were produced in steel dies, a manufacturing method that none of these people would have any knowledge of, or could likely afford. The dies used in the Third Reich were extremely costly even in their day. The process did not stop with the molding dies. In the case of original pieces they were carefully desburred, hand filed, and any additional detail work was then very professionally added. In the case of enameled rings there was a whole additional process that had to be executed. Herr Franz Schnell, the elderly jeweler that we purchased the collection from, was the only silversmith who was able to employ the process of setting enamel down the sides of his special pieces such as the Victory Rings and the Götz von Berlichingen pieces. There is no apprehension on our part of the copiers’ being able to forge those rings because of the process known only of Herr Schnell and taken to “Walhalla” with him. In any case, we have not seen even one copy of our rings produced by these brigands that did not exhibit serious flaws or, in many cases, they were quite abominable with lines and various features distorted beyond any serious recognition as a Third Reich-produced piece of jewelry. Most of these serpents do not even use ‘800’ or ‘835’ silver as was always used in the originals. Usually they use zinc or some other cheap alloy and then they “silver” plate them, often using the “quick plate” right out the bottle that can be found in novelty-jewelry supplies. It’s called “instant silver” formula. So, with all this in mind the buyer of German Third Reich jewelry needs to be aware of this regardless of the moronic ranting of forum x-spurts, Germania International has the singular distinction of having the world’s finest collection of authentic jewelry of the Reich. Note: we offer here some images of a steel die that was used in the 1940’s to produce the rings. This die was obtained from a collector of note in Ohio. Although Herr Schnell managed to hide much of his NS jewelry for 60 years or so, he did have to dispose of all of the dies in fear that the authorities would do some always-expected house searching and accuse him of presently producing these highly forbidden pieces. This was in East Germany under Communist rule so you can just imagine the draconian punishment for this if even suspected. The dies are at the bottom of the River Saale in Saxony-Anhalt. Schnell’s son knows for sure what was their fate, but will naturally not disclose this. So, this die pictured is the only one of its type that we have ever seen. It is 1/2 of the die set needed to produce an SS ring. If you look closely you can see the words “Meine Ehre heist Treue,” the SS motto in the shank. The |
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Here is a set of original Third Reich dies from the workbench of Herr Franz Schnell mentioned above. Herr Schnell made silver insignia as well as rings and jewelry. You will see various examples of his work on our pages; e.g., at Items SS 1-5 and NSD 2-3. These articles were manufactured by Schnell and sold to various companies which, in turn, supplied them to the Party, SS, Hitler Youth groups, and companies, which also supplied these organizations. As I have mentioned hitherto many of our original rings and insignia have been reproduced by “copy fiends” who are only able to use the lost-wax method of molding, while the authentic-period items by Franz were produced by elaborate steel dies that today would cost a “fortune,” thank goodness, and we feel that these nefarious individuals would never even consider investing in such hugely expensive production dies; who could other than a huge jewelry conglomerate? Here we will show you just how involved it was just to turn out an NS Party eagle in silver. Please note that it took four separate dies to produce just one design of the party eagle. Each of these pieces would be necessary to accomplish this item. This is an original set of dies that we managed to buy from the son of Herr Schnell after his death. We don’t strike eagles from this die, or any other! This is our pledge to you. The articles we have are all items that Herr Schnell hid away since 1945 and there were plenty of them all. The other dies for the rings and insignia were scrapped by Herr Schnell for desperately needed cash in the 1950s. They all were melted down and all that was left was this die set and part of a ring die as seen in the article above. This set was retained so that Franz and his sons could show friends and visitors the manufacturing methods. Note: This is not the eagle seen in NSD 2-3; that one has a much longer wingspan. We do not have any of the eagles produced in the 1930s and 1940s of this particular eagle and none will ever be produced from these dies. We show them only for educational purposes so that you can see what was entailed in producing German silver insignia and to show you the dies that made the big difference in Third Reich-produced insignia and the trash that is offered on other sites, today. The difference is actually “night and day” and any observant person could immediately see the difference in quality and detail between our originals and the stuff offered by the copiers. No. 1 Our first image shows all four die-strike parts together No. 2 The actual strike receiver plate No. 3 Another angle of the receiver plate No. 4 The impression plate No. 5 Another angle of the impression plate No. 6 The actual set plate No. 7 The plunger! No. 8 The plunger in the set plate Who out there would attempt to purchase such dies today? Answer: No one! They would rather play with the wax! We are glad we could show you the difference. This is how all of our silver items were produced in the 1930s-40s. This is our guarantee and they were all produced in dies such as these. |
Please refer to item designator in parentheses in all correspondence.
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