Wotan,,, from the photos there what do you think of the ring?
I would not have made a statement if you would not have asked, I don´t want be involved in endless, useless debates. For me this ring (and it´s box) is a one-looker original one. I do own several rings and boxes and have between 300 to 400 rings in my files. Collectors often forget or neglect that these rings have been produced through several years, years of peace, years of war and late war and by different workers/artists. You can see that on certain periods the quality of rings or the quality of engravings (or both) lacks and gets better again lateron. My assumtion is that in these periods workers at Gahr have been called up and an unexperienced, unskilled worker took over and did improve during his time.
Even if my assumption is wrong it is a fact that I have several rings in my files which are doubtless original and have such kind of shallow engraving. Also if you enlarge such pics you can see that these engravings are exactly done (recession, shaddow, beginning stroke, endstroke) like all the other well known and appeciated engravings but only a little shallow (or let us say better: fine).
We also might not forget that these engravings and the enhancing of the outside of the rings was done per hand and each artist might have better and not so good days.
Also the box is a doubtless original only missing one certain feature (a black band on the upper part). It is slightly restored (the later attached adhesive tape has been removed, perhaps color is also restored on some small parts) and is still collectible and rare as a hen´s teeth.
Just my 2ct.
Regards,
PS.: The rings were engraved in closed state, this is prooved by all engravers I have spoken with and can also be seen in the engraving itselve if you do study it carefully.
