Garde Officer Wappen Comparison

[b.loree]

One of the great things about doing restorations for people is that you get to handle some pretty rare and cool stuff. So in this case, I am working on Al's Garde officer tschapka which has a beautiful classic wappen and I thought, why not post some pics of it plus a Garde Inf Officer from my collection for comparison? I mean how many times would the average collector get a chance to do this?? So here we go:

Some obvious differences...7 tail feathers on the tschapka wappen, 5 on the Garde Inf. Wing span tip to tip..Garde Ulan 13.5cm, 5.5", Garde Infantry 17.5cm, 6 7/8". The star (stern) on the Ulan is naturally smaller to correspond to the rest of it's wappen. Both have the typical screw post system on the back.







The Ulan star has finer brass prongs soldered to the star, then soldered to the bird itself. Unfortunately, this solder has broken over the years and thus the star is a bit loose on the eagle's chest. To be continued.

Neusilber Garde Wappen

The star is unusual in that it has a silver wash on the rays rather than nickel plating, this probably indicates wartime production as does the steel square nuts.

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[edwin]

Interesting comparison

Thanks for sharing!

Best regards,

Edwin

[Westfront]

Nice wappens thanks for sharing

[ww1czechlegion]

The Ulan star has finer brass prongs soldered to the star, then soldered to the bird itself. Unfortunately, this solder has broken over the years and thus the star is a bit loose on the eagle's chest. To be continued.

by b.loree

I had noticed the loose star as well, and was curious why it was loose on the bird, and wondered if a nut, post, or prong was missing from the back. I didn't know which way the star was attached (screw posts with nuts, prongs, etc.) I was just incredibly thankful that after I got the helmet, I found a loose washer and nut for one of the eagle screw posts, tucked under the sweatband inside the helmet. It's nothing short of a miracle that those tiny parts never got lost over the decades!

That's a great study of some very nice front plates! Thanks for showing them Brian!

Best Regards,

Alan