Thank you for a cordial discussion, gentleman. I respect your opinions regarding this and point out that the dotted DKiG, in my opinion, MAY be wartime. However, I am uncomfortable with the following points, which have not been addressed-
1. Differences in the die characteristics of the wreath. Again, there is piece posted above that more closely represents the accepted wartime zimmerman DKiG, yet that is a fake. Why is the dotted piece then real?
2. Difference in stamp. They did change from heavy to light zimmerman. However, this would be a third change.
3. No dotted DKiGs with provenance. Given that zimmerman was the most prolofic producer of DKiGs, I would expect that we would have one such piece showing provenance. There are examples of provenance of the other makers. Why is there no pieces with provenance for the "dotted" piece?
4. No Kleins with dots. The two wreaths are identical, yet we have no Kleins with dots. We would have to assume that zimmerman stopped their relationship with Klein, or vice versa, to accept the absbence of Klein dotted pieces.
5. The piece would have to be late war, if we presume it to be original, as it is lighter and presumably made of cupal. This would preclude an early contention,as it would be like the heavy zimmerman and made of tombak.
Ron- I too have had a clinic at the VA and have seen a few fakes come my way. I was offered a Floch EK1 by a vet as a "bring back". The rounder that I purchased reportedly came directly from a vet estate sale. I love working with the vets, but as noted above, many of these guys were buying pieces post war as souveniers and trading in and out. Who knows where they really came from.
This is my opionion- you have yours. I would certainly change my opionion if we had a piece with solid provenace, like that seen on the Tim Calvert 3/4 ring cross. In the absence of that, the discprencies noted above would lead me to believe that this is not of wartime production.
