2 Piece Lot of PANZER COLONEL ERNST-WILHELM HOFFMAN's KNIGHTS CROSS WITH OAK LEAF CLUSTER AND HEINRICH HOFFMAN PRESENTATION PHOTO

KNIGHT'S CROSS MEDAL

As per the previous page, the medal's loop, where it interacts with the Oak Leaf's suspension ring, shows a significant amount of wear. The depth and clarity of the "L17" maker mark is also clearly demonstrated in this photgraph.

Please note that the dirt visibly encrusting a portion of the suspension ring could easily be removable with cleaning, as undoubtedly could the heavy patina which is evident on all of the silver surfaces of this medal and oak leaf.

That having been said, it was decided to leave the medal in this uncleaned condition so as to clearly demonstrate its age and dispel any question of its absolute originality and authenticity. While any future owner of this piece is obviously free to perform a cleaning operation on it, we would strongly counsel against it.

Not only would such an action lessen the obvious credibility which this piece commands, but it would also necessitate removing the Oak Leaf and Medal from the ribbon. As previously stated in this summary, the age of the stitching and reinforced ridges makes such an effort extremely hazardous and could result in rip or tears in the ribbon.

As seen in the photo to the left, there are some minor scratches and missing paint on part of the swastika which suggests that a half hearted effort may have been undertaken at some point in the past by a former owner to attempt to scrape all of the paint from this symbol. If true, they fortunately quit, probably because of the strength of the paint job, before any damage was done to the medal.

In summary, I have been privleged over the years to own a number of other Knight's Crosses, but none of them could ever match the comprehensive quality, age and unique ribbon system which this particular item possesses.

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