In the vast majority of cases, there is no sure way of confirming that something like a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 belonged to a particular individual. I have seen a few cases in which a cross forming part of a group was identifiable in wartime photographs but that really was a handful of cases in over thirty years. Although I have some medals and badges, I tend to collect documents as these were the awards and are attributable. The Knight's Cross, though very impressive in itself, is really just an overpriced bauble of no great rarity, variants aside.
If you recall, I mentioned to you that I had sold this cross to Dr Hansen. You replied that you were familiar with it. Therefore you have only to take a look at it to see that it is a perfectly genuine feinzink/neusilber RK by C E Juncker.
You stated quite unequivocally that these crosses were awarded to the first twenty-seven recipients in 1939.
Zink core/Neusilber framed Juncker crosses are no retail pieces - they are the rarest of the rare and were the crosses that were awarded to the first 27 recipients in 1939. You should have kept it.
Maybe I should have kept it. But if I were to regret letting it go, it would not be based on some impossible hope that it was one of the first twenty-seven Ritterkreuze awarded. There is no way of establishing that. My regret would be based upon having sold a nice, honest example of a rare and early type of Ritterkreuz.
As I said earlier already this is not something I came up with. A student of the RK can find this fact in Gordon's book on page 295. I just could confirm it with the Halder cross and the feedback from other collectors.
On Page 295 of his book, Gordon Williamson writes that the
"...very earliest known Juncker Knight's Crosses have Neusilber frames and are without markings." So, with this in mind, you looked at a Juncker feinzink/neusilber RK attributed to Franz Halder, awarded the RK on 28.10.1939, collected some "feedback" from other collectors and decided that the first twenty-seven recipients of the RK were given these zinc and nickle crosses?
I'm trying to follow the logic here. Is this because C E Juncker
only produced feinzink/neusilber RK to begin with? If so, it seems reasonable to presume that this was the type of cross supplied and handed out. There again, was C E Juncker the sole supplier of the RK in 1939? The contract to produce this new grade of the Iron Cross would surely have been put out to tender as soon as or even before the official announcement was made. Other firms would have presented samples. On Page 285, Williamson writes:
"From September 1939 to some time in mid-1941, a number of firms manufactured the Knight's Cross for retail sales.". Williamson then makes the point that these retail crosses were for RKT who wanted duplicates or wearing copies should they prefer to keep the award piece at home.
Coming back to the special cased sets containing the RK along with the 1939 EK1 and EK2, intended for high-ranking officers, Williamson also states, on Page 281, that
"most surviving examples of this type contain crosses manufactured by Godet.". I have seen a couple of these sets plus one of the sets containing the RK with both classes of the 1939 Bar to the 1914 Iron Cross. In two instances, the RK was definitely a Godet piece, as were the other awards. The cases were also typical of Godet. In the other instance, the cross was by another maker. I can assure you, despite not having written a book on Iron Crosses, that the cases and their contents were certainly genuine.
I agree that the zinc Juncker is a very early piece but I confess to finding it hard to believe that the first twenty-seven recipients received this type, based on Williamson's statement, your examination of a cross alleged to have been given to Halder in 1939 and this feedback from other collectors to which you refer. However, I see nothing wrong in suggesting that this happened. I just cannot accept it as proven fact so I think we will have to agree to disagree, as we have on other occasions.
PK