MvR's Pilot's Badge???

24 February 2007, 05:31 PM

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone has seen the Hermann Historica catalog for Auction 52 to be held May 2-11, 2007 (well, except for maybe Reinout!). I am not sure if I have this right or not, but it would seem that one of the Red Baron's actual pilot's badges and personal seal is up for auction!

Tell me that I'm not seeing things...

regards,

Darren

retread · 25 February 2007, 04:25 AM

I would say they are in earnest. It must be extremely well documented. I suppose the prices listed are starting bids, true?

25 February 2007, 05:43 AM

Hi Bob,

I believe that the prices shown reflect the range that they expect to get for the item. I do feel that they under-valued this one considerably though. Maybe they have seen German pilot's badges from this era only bringing between 1,000-2,000 Euros. Of course, many items will far exceed expectations, and I believe this will be one of them.

Another 'star' of the show must be Hugo Sperrle's Luftwaffe Combined Pilot's and Observer's Badge in Gold and Diamonds, where they expect to fetch an astonishing 65,000 Euros!

Should be an interesting show indeed.

regards,

Darren

Bulldog90 · 26 February 2007, 08:29 AM

Hi All,

I noticed that the ad says MvR's personal seal and "a" pilots badge, not "his" pilots badge. It may be a small point, but it seems the auction is telling us that this is not MvR's personal badge, right?

Bulldog 90

Digital-Audiophile · 26 February 2007, 08:53 AM

There would have to be a boatload of provenance before I would believe they are selling a pilot badge that belonged to MvR.

Reinout · 26 February 2007, 11:04 AM

Yes WingedWarrior, I saw it...

Note that neither the German nor the English caption suggest that it concerns "a" badge - both make it clear this badge belonged to MvR.

For completeness:

"Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen - Flugzeugfuhrerabzeichen und personliches Petschaft. Personal seal and a pilots badge of the famous WWI fighter pilot."

Note the misspelling of "pilot´s" in their English translation.

The lack of Umlaute is a handicap of my keyboard.

Kind regards,

Reinout

Aerowallah · 27 February 2007, 07:12 AM

None of these HH Richthofen items has had any provenance worth mentioning. They are effectively unsupported, which is why they have been realizing half of what they ought and what aces' groups go for on Thies' auctions, which are better documented. Nothing has surfaced from the Soviet haul.

Taz · 27 February 2007, 08:15 AM

Reinout- Make a small Word document titled Umlauts and insert the umlaut symbols you think you need. Put it at the bottom of your monitor using the "-" feature. The handiest for me is äöü although I have all the umlauts and also ô for Le Rhône and Gnôme. Whenever I need an umlaut, I Just pull up this document, copy the three letter äöü, send it back to the bottom, paste it in and delete the letters I do not need. If I do not edit-copy anything else, the 3 letter combination remains available with only a right click and paste.

Taz
Terry Phillips