I'd like to make my first post to this form a bit of a big request. I'm looking for someone who makes reproductions of honor rings that can personally size and inscribe them.
The story behind my request. Although I know very little about the specifics, apparently there is an original honor ring in the family, I personally have never seen it, but I have been told by my now late grandfather and surviving older uncles that it belonged originally to an ancestor of mine named "Heinz Badenhop" my mother's family in America still carries a modified version of the original name as "Badenhope" an attempt at making it easier for English speakers to pronounce correctly, although it still is always butchered. He was (as I've been told) and as I've been able to find out through limited research with records and family letters and the German War Graves Commission's search ability. Born in 1924 in Gilten and fell into soviet hands very late in the war. He died/was worked to death/was executed in Soviet captivity in 1946.
As stated above, I have never seen the original ring, and can't fully verify the tale, but regardless would love to have a reasonable reproduction of it made, they are all very similar in basic appearance and only the inner band differed from ring to ring in the wide sense of things. I'd like a very good replica made, something that honors the man that originally wore it and earned the right to wear it. I do not want something that is so convincing that it could be sold off as a real one though, something well made and very real looking, made from the same quality metal and cast correctly, but not a fake.
Does anyone know of someone that does custom made reproductions that could be sized correctly for my finger and that could be inscribed with his family name in the correct font and everything. I'm unsure of its original award date, so I will just choose a random date that fits within the timeline that he was likely to have been awarded it.
I've heard good thing about a gentleman named "Hapur" that makes customized high quality rings in the original materials with original equipment, but can't find any way to contact him or know of anyone who does.
Any idea of the costs involved?
Any information anyone can give would be very much appreciated!
I'd like to end this with a statement that I am not a "nazi" or believe in what they fought for, but I did have a-lot of family that did, 13 of them were killed in WWII in service to Germany. I have no respect for the ideals that they may have fought for, and I'm sure to an extent they didn't either. But I do respect them and honor them for the very real sacrifice that the rendered unto their people and their nation, I've never liked how people talk about all Germans and German soldiers of the era as monsters. They were ordinary men doing what they thought was right for their nation. And I can respect that. I have many of their grave sites pinpointed and plan on visiting a few of them each time I travel with every new trip I take to Europe.
I'll end this with an interesting but unrelated picture of my Great Grandfather (Johannes Friedrich Heinrich Badenhop) posing for a picture with his friends during the first world war. Hes the shorter gentleman on the bottom, second from the left. He did, thankfully come home, and brought a-lot of mental scars home with him. He left for America in the early 1920's leaving most of his family behind.
Many thanks and best wishes of a happy thanksgiving -Alexander Ross
