S Mine question.

[P38Man]

Heres my question about smiz 35 manufacturer , so i ve found this smiz in the place where battles took turns in november 44 to may 45 , does obsence of year resembles the late war production or ita just a feature of this manufacturer?

If you look at the last photo above in Post #13 (copied below), the first S.Mi.Z.35 in the photograph is only marked ЯR 606. While the year is generally present (at least in my S.Mi.Z.35 examples) it is absent in a small number of others. Similarly across all German WW2 materiel the year is generally but not always present with the three letter code.

As to whether or not the absence of the year makes it a late war production, I don't think so as I have a complete box of 15 matching Zugzünder 35 (Z.Z.35) where the cardboard box is dated 1940 and marked ЯR, but each of the matching Z.Z.35 igniters are only marked ЯR with no date.

Eric

 

[ThomasP]

I asked a friend of mine (no. not CHAT/GPT ) about the 'ЯR' marking. He told me it was probably the legacy code for the Richard Rinker company, a company that produced smaller explosive items like hand grenades during the inter-war period.

In the run-up to and during WWII the Germans continued using this logo regardless of the manufacturer in the case of a number of companies/plants that were quietly established during the pre-war period. The 2- or 3-digit number after the 'ЯR' is the numerical code for the actual manufacturer or plant - not the lot number.

He suggests the 'fen' may have been an attempt at fooling the Allies intelligence thru the use of a non-existant 3-letter code that would not be traceable to a real manufacturer/plant, similar to the continued use of the 'ЯR' logo regardless of the actual manufacturer.

He said he has seen a numerical code list online somewhere but does not remember where.

I have read of this practice before in somewhat authoritative sources, and have read about the 2- & 3-digit codes, but I have no idea what manufacturers' 2- & 3-digit numerical codes were used with 'ЯR'.

 

[P38Man]

The history of the ЯR marking is quite interesting. Originally it was the logo of the Richard Rinker factory in Menden Kreis, Iserlohn. Under the Treaty of Versailles this factory was the only company permitted to produce stielhandgranaten. To get around the restrictions of said Treaty the Germans introduced a two or three digit numerical code in 1925. The number 336 was assigned to Richard Rinker but they didn't start using it until about 1940. Then in 1940 the Germans introduced the three letter code to replace the numerical codes. For Richard Rinker this was brb. A second factory to produce stielhandgranaten was opened in the mid 1930's by Richard Rinker in Mecklenburg and its three letter code was dbk.

To further confuse things, from about 1930 until 1940 the RR logo (mostly but not always with the first R reversed), was also used by other companies with no relationship to Richard Rinker. The idea was to thoroughly disguise the true manufacturer, and confuse the hell out of post war researchers!

Anyone interested in this area should check Bergflak's excellent section on Richard Rinker and the production of stielhandgranaten at bergflak.com/m24rr.html