UPDATE
Following many enquiries with archives throughout Germany since July last year, I've now managed to obtain further lists of Meistersch�tze badge numbers for the previous years.
I now have the names of all those who received badges in 1941. Unfortunately it seems that only the names, not the badge numbers were recorded in that year. However following hours of painstaking cross referencing, I have managed to find the badge numbers for 431 of the 748 names I have recorded for 1941 using documents from the following years.
I now have all of the recorded badge numbers for the years 1942 through 1944 plus the complete list of numbers for the issued 3 year badges!!!!
Following that I can now confirm that Raymond's 1943 badge #2349 is also either a replacement/extra purchased piece, or it was unissued, as there is only one badge number in the 2300 range & that is #2321. The highest number apart from that one is #2280.
For reference the highest badge number issued in 1942 was 1399. As with the other years, there are gaps in the number sequences suggesting that for what ever reason some badges were not issued/recorded.
In answer to Houston's enquiry in an earlier post as to whether the 3 Year badges were issued from #1 in 1943 & continue numerically into 1944, yes they do. However many of the lower numbers do not seem to have been issued for some reason, for example of the possible 89 two digit serial number badges available (#10-99) only 25 numbers were recorded as issued.....
It's surprising how many of the badges in collections & on dealer sites are unissued, confirming that there must have either been a hoard found post war or GI's liberated the store as they moved through the area. It's quite hard to find issued pieces in collections. Finally, I thought I'd share some of my recent pick-ups with you. 6 new badges, all issued pieces (unfortunately all to different people).
Houston, pm sent.
Cheers
Don
