Originally posted by Steve Campbell
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As we are collectors on a collectors forum, I think defining the crosses from a collectors perspective, rather than a wearers perspective, is fully justified.
The discussion has been interesting in it's semantics (I won't say I haven't learnt anything!) but imo has dangerous implications for calling any 1914EK1 produced post-November 1918 a fake - not 1924, as Imperial awards ceased to exist after Nov 1918, regardless of whether individual units or the Weimar government continued to authorise awards after that date.
For me as a collector, specifically regarding 1914 EK(1)s, there are wartime awards, wartime private puchase (wearer's duplicates), late teens/20s examples (good luck distinguishing any of those crosses with 100% certainly unless directly from the veteran), probable 30s examples, TR (LdO) period examples, late 40s/50s examples and examples assicoated with the early 57er period (say, late 50s and 60s). Examples from any of those peiods are for me original examples from that period based on manufacturing "criteria" (basemetals, hardware, size, etc) - regardless of the intent behind the purchase/wear/use of the cross, which we will in 99% of cases never know. Anything after the 60s for me is getting into a grey area of "for collectors". Anything 80s onwards (remember, I'm only talking 1914 crosses) is for me purely for collectors.
There are new/recently made (and, of course, older) reproductions attempting to pass themselves off from all of the above periods - these are made to fool collectors (regardless of the term "museum quality" or anything similar) and are the true copies/fakes in my book.
Regards
Mike
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