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Is this US para wing genuin WW II badge?


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Nice WW2 paratrooper wing. I've seen a number of these particular wings over the years and it seemed as if the maker could never make up their mind where to place their hallmarks of the NS Meyer shield and the word sterling. I've seen the shield & sterling clumped together on the left wing, upside down clumped together on right wing, sterling on the left wing with the shield on the right wing and the one I have has the shield on the right wing but no sterling hallmark even though it is made of sterling. I've noticed that the size of the lettering for sterling differs with one of the wings and the location where they soldered the pin back is a little different. Based on these observations my guess is that these hallmarks must have been stamped onto the wing afterwards by hand instead of being part of the initial die. Since they are all over the place my guess is that the company did not dictate where exactly they were required to stamp their hallmarks. Since they are all over the place maybe different employees of the company were stamping the hallmarks where they felt they should be as they were never given any guidance. The soldering of the pin back fixing is a little off with some so it gives an impression that they were rushed. Does anyone know if this was the practice back in WW2? I'm also assuming that the raised hallmarks on WW2 era paratrooper wings were part of the initial die.

 

Here are photos of what I'm talking about. One photo shows the same placement of hallmarks but much lower than the original wing in this thread, a second photo shows both hallmarks clumped together on the left wing and a third photo shows the hallmarks clumped together upside down on the right wing and the lettering for STERLING much larger. The fourth photo shows the shield on the right wing with Sterling on the left wing.

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Last photo which I couldn't fit in the above post is the one I own with the shield on the right wing minus (forgot?) the sterling hallmark.

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If you look closely in the group of four picture you can see these all came from different dies. Meyer contacted out its work so these could have been made by four different companies. The fifth (separate) badge could be silver plated brass and reason the sterling mark is missing.

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It would be nice to see the fronts of all of these to see if they also have slight differences.

Here you go.

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