Deumer Sales Board – Complete

Product Description: This Deumer Sales Board is a very desirable piece. These are rare to find, especially in such nice condition. This original board, circa 1945, is adorned with 15 original pre-1945 German awards, all of which were manufactured by the firm of Wilhelm Deumer in Lüdenscheid. The awards included on this piece are a Close Combat Clasp in Bronze, Reichsarbeitsdienst long service medal, War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords, a driver’s badge, miniature Mothers Cross, Westwall medal on miniature ribbon, Social Welfare Medal, a really nice first class Iron Cross Spange, mint Iron Cross 2nd Class, Black Wound Badge, a War Merit Cross First Class without swords, a beautiful Narvik shield, War Merit Medal, Krim shield, and Freikorps era Silesian Eagle award. All of the awards originally affixed to this board are still present, and all appear completely untouched, with no signs of ever having been removed. The are unissued awards, and with the exception of very slight age patina and normal fading of finish on some of the zinc pieces, they remain in factory mint state. The awards are affixed with thread to a white card stock board which shows slight age toning. Each award is labeled with a number which would have corresponded to an identification card that these were sold with, when bought by souvenir-hungry GIs. This Deumer Sales Board is an impressive object, that makes a fantastic display piece. It is in near mint condition.

Historical Description: Third Reich sales boards, salesman’s sample boards, or souvenir boards, have been a topic of study for collectors. At one time, these were mostly viewed as having been made and used by award and insignia manufacturers to advertise their wares and display them for prospective clients such as tailor shops, and there is no doubt that some of these served this purpose. In more recent times it has come to be generally expected that many of these, especially those showing assortments of awards, were put together very early in the postwar period, in the Western occupied zone, for sale to souvenir-hungry Allied soldiers- in particular, American GIs. With these sales boards, awards manufacturers in places like Lüdenscheid were able to market unsold, new old stock pre-1945 manufactured awards to this new market of occupation soldiers. In the years after the war, most of these boards were separated. Study of intact original boards has helped collectors make valuable conclusions about award variants and manufacturers, and intact boards from 1945 and earlier are very desirable today.

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