As many of you know I have a fondness for ground dug badges and I’ve today been offered this Panzerkampfabzeichen ASW and as usual i’m looking for opinions. It’s not that I mistrust this seller as up until now I have no reason to believe he is anything other than a genuine Stalingrad digger.

I’m aware that the Arno Wallpach has been faked in the past but apparantly only in lead, this badge appears to be a hollow backed brass example. Can anyone tell me if oxidised brass will look like this?

First of all the obverse:

Attachment 152815

As for the reverse we can see that the pin and catch are missing. I understand that genuine AWS badges should have a crimped catch. I think the area where the catch was located looks like a crimp only of course highly corroded. What does everyone think?

Attachment 152814

Click to enlarge the picture