Nazi memorabilia. I found a medallion with a swastika and Hitler's name on it in a thrift store.

by GoonInSixtySeconds

As I stated in the post I found this medallion and wanted to know more about the origin or meaning behind it. I will include a like to a picture of it.

medalloon

circumfloribus

This is a very interesting medal! While it isn't clear exactly what this medal is, there is some consensus on what it is NOT.

First, it was manufactured somewhere outside of Germany after 1945. The fact that Adolf Hitler's name is spelled wrong on the medal is the first clue to this - certainly no official Nazi party medal or token would have been allowed to have this misspelling while the party was in power, and after World War II all Nazi iconography was illegal, so it is very unlikely it was made in Germany after the war. The misspelling "Adolph" could point toward an North American or UK origin - that spelling of the first name is much more common in English-speaking nations.

Second, it is considered by some numismatists to be a fake or "fantasy", an object that someone purposefully made to pass off as something it is not. The coin collecting website Coinquest lists this as a fake medal.

There are a few different versions of this medal that can be found being sold online. It is unclear if these are multiple versions made by the same maker, or versions made to imitate each other by several successive makers. All of the auctions that had a source location listed were from the United States.

  1. Serif Font - this medal uses a capitalized serif font for the text, and has an un-tilted right-facing swastika punched out of the center (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
  2. Serif Font money clip - same as the serif font version, but has been modified into a money clip (Examples: 1, 2)
  3. Sans Serif Font - same basic design, but uses a thick capitalized sans serif font for both the text and the date (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4)
  4. Sans Serif non-punched - uses a different, thinner sans serif font and does not have the center swastika punched out (Examples: 1, 2, 3)
  5. Serif Font with 45-degree swastika - like the serif font version, but the punched-out swastika is tilted at a 45-degree angle (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

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