Prussian Pilot Badge

[Jeff B.]

Hey guys am new to site so hope I'm doing this right. Wanted input on this badge I recently acquired it's a screwback modification, i haven't been able to find out anything about this type of variation i.e. rarity or commonness. Here's a link to pics of it since I can't attach to this message. Can see the previous places the hinge and catch used to be. Any info would be greatly appreciated, thanks, jeff https://picasaweb.google.com/1127978...rmanPilotBadge

[gregM]

I don't collect pilot badges but I don't have a good feeling about
this one.

[juoneen]

If you look closely this has pock marks all over it front and back attesting to it being a sand casting. Pilots badges from WW1 were replaced by transitionally made badges issued to those who earned them that lost theirs to souvenir hunters at the end of the war, but this is a very poor copy, and IMO NOT original even as a transitional. Many transitionals were silver, and those today are highly faked . Not withstanding the possibility that screw backs could have existed in the in between war time when hitler took power, and had all the first world war badges retooled and remanufactured , this decoration regardles of maker , even as an issued piece was 3 dimentional , and when an original talks to you so to say. I am betting this is an early reproduction post ww2, and not a military sanctioned version, as even souval made fakes as fakes for that market mostly in the usa.. They did make comemorative badges like the the tank badge post war, but there also was much demand to own a pilots badge, and in the early years of badge collecting there was no known standard as to how they were made or materials like fakers study today, so unless you knew a vet from WW1 that snagged one "over there" nobody would be the wiser in those days. I give it a and agree your feelings of pause are accurate.

[Jeff B.]

I appreciate your time and thoughts, I just wonder why if one was making a fake badge that they would even bother to make the hinge and catch assemble at all then only to remove and replace with screw, seems like extra work. Wouldn't it be easier to just make w/o adding hinge and catch? Unless thats part of the deception of making a fake. IDK. Thanks for your thoughts.

[streptile]

Hi,

First, welcome to the site.

Your badge is a fake, and is even marked as a fake. The crowned G is for the company "Göde," a well-known maker of reproduction awards for re-enactors.

Check out some original Pilot's Badges and you will never mistake this one for an original, even without the Göde mark. There is no comparison between the two in terms of detail and workmanship.

[streptile]

Here's an original, next to yours:

[Don D.]

The first badge shown is a cast fake of a Gode replica badge.