No, *this* is the weirdest pen on ebay - EVER

[beak]

Sorry to interrupt, but I want to say something.

 

Whatever we think about the filthy behaviour and banal policies of the third Reich, the collecting of their relics and study of them in general does not indicate any support for anything they did or believed.

 

In my case at least, the ability to buy their relics, and to study them, is always, for me, symbolic of the fact that the civilized world turned on them and beat them down, at great cost.

 

I find the manufacture of fake Nazi relics quite sick, because it shows a concern with profit overriding a true sense of what they were, and what they did, and is interfering with a true evaluation of that issue, which I believe is an important thing to have, especially for younger people who have no direct connection with the times.

 

Sorry to bore you with that, but it's the sort of thing thst has to be got off the chest now and then!

Edited February 27, 2011 by beak

[opitzs]

Hi from Germany,

 

1. the use of the word "Germany" would be unusual for the third Reich, but "Made in Germany" was a quality seal in use since the 19th century, so it is unusual but possible.

2. the eagle depicted looks ok for the era, remember the nazis where busy doing other things (to put it mildly), so a botched eagle here or there, as long as it is not a peace dove

 

So, I'd say a definitive maybe, but it would be quite unusual, especially the word "Germany" on a Luftwaffe pen.

 

Of course, nazi memorabilia are not my forte, so take this with a grain or pound of salt.

[WanderingAuthor]

If the pictured pen was actually manufactured in Germany in 1939, it would not have been given as an award to Luftwaffe pilots. Adolf Hitler, in 1939, would have awarded his pilots a pen with much finer workmanship than that. (This is not said in support of Hitler or the NSDAP; it is simply an observation. The SS and any military personnel who were singled out for special notice tended to get the best, not the cheap junk.)

 

In addition, while "Made in Germany" was used years before the Nazis came to power, it became less common while they were in power. I'm sure it was still used on some products for export - but on a pen with their symbolism prominently displayed on the clip? And while we think of 1939 as the year the war started, at the time there would have been less reason to display the year so prominently.

 

Either this is a fake - or it is a cheap souvenir given to a visiting delegation or some such - if the year was 1936, I'd wonder if they were handed out to every Olympic athlete - who didn't merit anything more than this shoddy Montblanc (if it is actually a Montblanc). If the poster who bought this wants to learn more of its history, that is the area I'd explore. The fact it reads "Germany" rather than "Deutschland" strongly implies if it is real it was not meant for Germans, but for those outside Germany, possibly English or Americans. Was there any event at which large numbers of English speakers gathered in Germany in 1939?

 

There is one thing which might incline me to believe it is genuine, even if it is either different from the first pen mentioned in the e-Bay auction which started this thread (or the seller completely misunderstood its history). While the quality is very poor for anything intended as a military award, it would not be unusual in another context. Much of Germany's industry was concentrating most of their efforts on manufacturing whatever suited the NSDAP as they geared up for war. So items considered less important were often made hurriedly and displayed very poor quality. (On the other hand, it isn't that hard to get cheap castings with more impressive detail than this pen displays; it appears almost a bit too crude - although I don't know what is usual in the markets of Eastern Europe.) So the owner might actually want to devote a little research into the question of what this might really have been produced for.

Edited March 13, 2011 by WanderingAuthor

[WanderingAuthor]

It looks fake to me. First, the eagle is all wrong - looks more like a minah than the Reich's characteristic bird of prey. Second, 'Germany'? A nationalistic empire using the English word for their beloved fatherland? Even if it's a gift, sympathetic Britons wouldn't be put off by 'Deutschland'. ("I say, Unity, this pen is in German. Do tell Adie to have a whisper in Mont Blanc's ear.")

 

But I'm as much an expert on this as I am on butterfly mating.

 

So take these speculations with a pinch of the proverbial.

 

Why pick on Charity Mitford? It is true, she was sympathetic to the Nazis - but when she discovered her own country was at war with them, she killed herself because she couldn't handle her suddenly divided loyalties. And there is no evidence to suggest she ever suspected the horrors that lay beneath the Nazi gloss. So while I hardly admire her judgment, even I can muster a little sympathy for her.

 

I don't mean to be too harsh on you, either - but when a post manages to grate on my ears because of its ridicule of someone sympathetic to the Nazis, I have to think I'm not being that touchy. I grew up hating the Nazis, and still do. I detest everything they stood for. (I do understand there were individuals who joined the NSDAP who weren't wholehearted supporters. I certainly don't hate all Germans, and not even every individual who was caught up in the Nazi madness.) But the Nazis would have certainly exterminated me for one reason, and possibly others. (I was born with ocular albinism - and I can't imagine, if they somehow missed that, I would have escaped the "anti-social" label under their regime.) And they did try to kill my great-gran (a British subject), while she was evacuating from Dublin to the US. (Not personally, but they strafed her train, and dropped a bomb directly outside the front door of the hotel she stayed at in London. And a U-boat may have tried to sink the ship she was on crossing the Atlantic.) And my great-uncle was a paratrooper who fought in Operation Market Garden (I have his shoulder patches).

 

But in spite of all that, I just can't bring myself to hate a silly, messed up girl whose only crime was to be taken in by a man who swayed much steadier heads than hers.

[turban1]

the closest thing to Nazi regalia I'm willing to own is a tape of The Producers.

 

Quite!

[ANM]

The clip looks to me to be an after market item that could have been slipped on any pen that didn't already have a clip or to replace a broken one. So drawing inferences about the pen based on the clip may be misleading.

[WanderingAuthor]

The clip looks to me to be an after market item that could have been slipped on any pen that didn't already have a clip or to replace a broken one. So drawing inferences about the pen based on the clip may be misleading.

 

The clip is stamped "Montblanc", so either it is a fake, or it was made by Montblanc for Montblanc pens. It is possible it was made as an extra, much as Kaweco sells slip on clips for some of their pens today. And, in addition, the clip, taken together with the stamped inscription "Germany 1939" in large type - and it would have been unusual to mark the year of manufacture quite this prominently - suggests the pen was intended as a souvenir of some particular event. (Always assuming the pen is real and not a fake; I don't pretend to guess what goes through the minds of those who come up with "forgeries" of things that never existed.) And the choice of the English language suggests the recipients were primarily English speakers, or at least not native German speakers.

 

Of course, I would expect that Montblanc would deny any knowledge of such an item as this, whether it is real or not. I'm not suggesting they had any "special relationship" with the NSDAP - I know of no German pen company which was particularly linked to the Nazis - but simply that no one with a current brand to protect would want it associated with something like this. Add to that the likelihood that records from that period were destroyed, either during the war or during the decades that followed, and even if it was produced by Montblanc, they might have absolutely no knowledge of that fact today. So the question is unlikely to be settled that way. I do wonder, if the pen were carefully disassembled by an expert, what the internal parts might reveal. If it is a fake, I can't imagine them wasting much time on interior details, so an inspection of those parts of the pen a buyer wouldn't see upon looking at it should be quite informative.

 

If the owner does manage to learn anything more, I hope they'll post here, since it would be helpful in understanding the history of pens in Germany at that time. Although I very much doubt it will be possible to identify the precise occasion these pens were produced for, unless someone has a lucky hunch and manages to confirm it in contemporary news accounts. ("Each attendee was given a pen as a memento of their...." etc. etc.)

[coastie]

I do not think that this is an authentic Third Riech item. My main concern is the poor quality of workmanship of the clip. The eagle as mentioned before is (bleep). I've collected enough of this stuff and this is below par. If you look at anything Hitler presented to anyone it was always of superb quality.

I also think that Montblanc would not allow such poor workmanship leave it's shop. Notice how the lettering is uneven. Montblanc would have done it better.

 

There has been thousands of fake 3rd Riech medals, uniforms, and fantasy pieces coming out of the eastern European countries.

 

Bottom line for me, this was hammered out by some back room shop in Bulgaria.

[WanderingAuthor]

I do not think that this is an authentic Third Riech item. My main concern is the poor quality of workmanship of the clip. The eagle as mentioned before is (bleep). I've collected enough of this stuff and this is below par. If you look at anything Hitler presented to anyone it was always of superb quality.

I also think that Montblanc would not allow such poor workmanship leave it's shop. Notice how the lettering is uneven. Montblanc would have done it better.

 

There has been thousands of fake 3rd Riech medals, uniforms, and fantasy pieces coming out of the eastern European countries.

 

Bottom line for me, this was hammered out by some back room shop in Bulgaria.

 

It might well be a fake. My point was that, since it reads "Montblanc", it was either made by them or it is a fake - it is not a generic, "aftermarket" clip.

 

On the other hand - didn't Montblanc have cheaper lines of pens in 1939 than we're used to thinking of? And, as the Nazis geared up for war, high quality industrial machinery and skilled workmen were in short supply. So I'm not sure about the workmanship.

 

As for Hitler presenting this to anyone, I agree. Anything he personally presented would have been of much higher quality than this. If it is authentic, I would imagine it was presented to visitors barely important enough to be given a cheap souvenir - and given by some low-level functionary whose greatest claim to fame was that he once shook Hitler's hand.

 

Again, it might well be a fake. But every nation, every group, hands out (bleep) - the difference is in the status of the presenter and the recipient. So I don't think the fact this is crude (bleep) automatically rules it out. It could have been something made as a rush order for the Mayor of East Stinkpot in Prussia to hand out to a group of visiting schoolkids on the occasion of the one thousandth anniversary of the founding of the local pig farm. (I intend no disrespect to Germans here; my satire is aimed at the calibre of event I imagine this might have been linked to. If it is genuine.) And if the Mayor of East Stinkpot had just enough connections, Montblanc might have preferred to satisfy him with this junk than refuse him outright. Especially since a refusal to make an item with this type of insignia might have been "politically sensitive". I'm not saying this is what happened, only that it is a possible scenario.

 

I still think the only solid answer possible here would be if the owner were to have the pen disassembled, to see what "story" the internal parts told. I don't imagine anyone who'd make that bad a fake - and if it is a fake, it is a crappy one - would have gone to the trouble of making those internal parts very plausible at all.

[ANM]

I thought long and hard about what I was thinking about that clip before I posted it because of the Montblanc on the clip and that the cap ring appears to match. But the clip looks very much like it is soldered onto a spring clip and could be slipped off of whatever pen it came with and onto another. Montblanc, in the '30's was just another pen maker. It wasn't until the 1980's that they started positioning themselves in the luxury class. By then fountain pens were mostly a luxury item anyway. They had been replaced almost entirely with much much cheaper writing instruments. These could have been made separately and sold as a novelty by Montblanc. I am not saying it is likely, just a possibility. The Montblanc on the clip also suggests the possibility that it was made more recently with it intent to deceive.

Edited March 13, 2011 by ANM

[WanderingAuthor]

I thought long and hard about what I was thinking about that clip before I posted it because of the Montblanc on the clip and that the cap ring appears to match. But the clip looks very much like it is soldered onto a spring clip and could be slipped off of whatever pen it came with and onto another. Montblanc, in the '30's was just another pen maker. It wasn't until the 1980's that they started positioning themselves in the luxury class. By then fountain pens were mostly a luxury item anyway. They had been replaced almost entirely with much much cheaper writing instruments. These could have been made separately and sold as a novelty by Montblanc. I am not saying it is likely, just a possibility. The Montblanc on the clip also suggests the possibility that it was made more recently with it intent to deceive.

 

As I've already stated, the possibility this pen is a fake is a very real one. There's no way to rule that out short of a careful examination of the pen itself.

 

But, if this clip was made separately and sold as a novelty, it seems odd it would be found on a pen which appears to bear a "commemorative" marking of 'Germany 1939' - just the sort of thing you might expect to find on a cheap handout intended for a particular occasion. That is, the cap of the pen and the clip each separately suggest they were intended to mark some occasion, however insignificant. (Again, if this is not a fake, it was made for an insignificant event, not something where Hitler himself or any other high-ranking Nazi would have presented them.) Which is exactly the same thing which causes me to refuse to completely rule out the possibility this is real; for a crudely executed fake, there are no glaring inconsistencies.

 

Edited to add: One possibility just occurred to me. Could this have been made for any international event associated with the Hitler Jugend or the Bund Deutscher Madel? Did they host guests from other countries or anything of the sort? This is much more plausible as something handed out to older kids going back to other countries, to impress them. I don't know quite enough to be sure how likely this is, and surely there are other possibilities, but that would be one avenue to at least explore.

Edited March 13, 2011 by WanderingAuthor

[elpaninaro]

On the other hand - didn't Montblanc have cheaper lines of pens in 1939 than we're used to thinking of? And, as the Nazis geared up for war, high quality industrial machinery and skilled workmen were in short supply. So I'm not sure about the workmanship.

 

My knowledge of Nazi memorabilia is thankfully limited, but based on what little I have seen in person you make a very important point. There is also the matter of lesser materials being used to produce goods. A lot of what exists, especially what can be dated to the latter part of the war, is not very well made at all, nor composed of high quality raw materials. It is the terrifying hallmark of a society that has abandoned all sense of reason and pride to focus on a misguided path to recover from severe economic hardship.

 

One thing that strikes me very curious about this pen is the prominence of the stamp and numbers 925 indicating the alleged silver content (sterling.) The marks are awkwardly large and garish. Not sure it answers any questions- possible that this is authentic and was cranked out in a hurry by less skilled craftsmen, or possible it is a fake with some age on it that pre-dates current mastery of the art of counterfeiting which would include knowing not to "over-announce" something like a mark indicating the presence of a precious metal.

 

Frankly, the right answer is that there is no way of knowing and I have generally found it is not worth trying to find out when you are dealing with a product that was allegedly produced during a very unusual time and which is currently very collectible. Sorting out deviations from normal practice would be hard enough when evaluating a good produced by a given manufacturer- but when you add in the temptation to put some effort into putting out a fake to sate collector demand, plus in the case of Nazi Germany a great reluctance of companies to release information about their activities at the time, there is no way to really ever know.

 

Forgive the thread drift, but since others have opined I feel obliged to toss in my 2 cents. I agree with another poster that I would not necessarily assume someone collecting Nazi memorabilia has sympathies in that direction, but for me I could never participate in that market. Some years ago, a colleague approached me to help him sell some antiquities- as people often do- and what he had to offer was a selection of silverware that his father claimed to have stolen from Nazi officer's mess at the end of the war. I held one of the spoons in my hand (cheap aluminum and terrible workmanship but genuine I think) and it sent a shiver down my spine I remember to this day. I never thought material objects could channel a sense of evil before that day. Naturally I politely declined his request.

Edited March 14, 2011 by elpaninaro

[beak]

To me, this thread has wandered in a useful direction; Nazi relics are often the subject of interesting discussions.

 

I say 'useful' because this subject is not often talked about calmly, as it is being treated here, and that is why I think it is useful. Passions flare very quickly when the matter is raised, and though, as I have said, there can be no sympathy for National Socialism tolerated in any civilized investigation of the times, I believe there is more profit to be had from the topic than reactive shunning of the whole thing. That's too easy an answer, IMO.

 

Commenting on cheap give-aways; it may be worth those interested looking at any of the thousands of cheap commemorative badges (called 'tinnies') that were issued left, right and centre for any anniversary to do with anything NSDAP. Not even any of these that I have seen has been of such poor quality as the pen clip in question. Hence my opinion that it was not produced at the time.

 

THIS is a link to a google page, should anyone wish to refer to common examples and compare them to the pen clip.

Edited March 14, 2011 by beak

[coastie]

I had an opportunity the other day of looking at a Montblanc ofthe same vintage as this pen. The quality of the pen itself is without question of fine craftsmanship. The clip was a detachable kind of a coiled snake. The snake had very fine detail unlike the eagle on the pen in question.

[greencobra]

Not sure if it's fake. I can't help wonder if it wasn't done for the 1939 Worlds Fair in NY. Germany never did set up at that fair but it might explain the "Germany" markings. A little advance planning for something that never happened.

 

The Symbol as you see it on that pen was the national symbol and had been since 1935. To display it didn't mean you were in the NAZI party. There were no NAZI quality control people checking on what this symbol looked like. Much like today, the interpertation was up to the maker as long as it was respectful. And granted, if it were a "NAZI" presentaion piece it would have been impecable. I also would expect better of Montblanc as to final finishing but if it's real, it's over 70+ years old. I have seen original tie and stick pins of this symbol with severe wear, worse than what this shows.

 

I'm wondering if anyone has sent copies of the photos in this thread to a dealer in this stuff. There are a lot of nationaly know dealers who are serious about exposing fakes like this.

[EdwardHowland]

EBay rarely kicks items as fakes unless the company that is "knocked off" files a VERO complaint. That would have to have come from Mont Blanc which is entirely possible, as the clip looks to crude to be from Mont Blanc. EBay have sold Nazi items in the past, but they are touchy about the swastika and the right complaint and it would be pulled. There are a list of counties that you can not mail to with Nazi items, including Germany.

 

I too have questions about the use of "Germany" as the mark for a pen that almost certainly not have been worn in an European English Speaking country in 1939. But, there were some in the U.S. that would have worn it with pride in 1939. Most of them got real quite or lived in a camp "for their safety" after the war started for the US.

Recently I was listening to an old radio program (CA 1933) and the sponsor, Majestic Radios, was offering free swastika "good luck" charms from India. The advertisement said you would be "proud" to wear this ancient symbol of good luck. I found the whole idea kind of creepy, but then realized that at that time the swastika had not yet acquired the notoriety it would gain just a few years later.

[mark e]

that isnt just the weirdest pen on ebay---it's the creepiest, fakest and uncoolest--ever--by far

 

put it in a paper bag, get out your basic B-F-H (5-lb sledge), pound it into a million pieces, then burn what's left

 

not cool

[FearNot]

If this were some sort of commemorative pen or a "give away", considering it's rather "cheap" construction, one would expect it to have been produced in quantity. If this is a genuine artifact, why are there no other known examples? It hardly seems likely that there would be only one example to have survived; possible, but unlikely.

Edited September 8, 2011 by FearNot

[pompa]

Recently I was listening to an old radio program (CA 1933) and the sponsor, Majestic Radios, was offering free swastika "good luck" charms from India. The advertisement said you would be "proud" to wear this ancient symbol of good luck. I found the whole idea kind of creepy, but then realized that at that time the swastika had not yet acquired the notoriety it would gain just a few years later.

 

The "General Swedish Electrical Limited Company" ("Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget" or "ASEA") had a swastika as a logo from the late 19th century up to 1933.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/ASEA_logo_pre_1933.jpg

Edited September 8, 2011 by pompa

[JefferyS]

Actually, now the bird looks like the pigeon in an AFLAC television commercial here in the US.