Jon and Leo

[John Hodgin]

Over the past few days two new members in the process of joining, Jon and Leo, have emailed me photos from their collections to share here. Jon sent photos of a Luftwaffe tropical tunic and Luftwaffe tropical trousers to be posted on the Uniforms Forum. Leo sent photos of a jump helmet and a tan/water jump smock for the Fallschirmjäger Forum.

I believe that both Jon and Leo suspected that our comments would be negative, and our comments have indeed been negative. It takes courage to face the fact that you have spent a lot of money for something that is not as it was represented, and thus not of collecting or historical value. This has happened to most of us. It surely has to me; I felt sick to my stomach. It saddens me that we had to impart bad news to both of them. Seba created this Forum for fellow collectors to share knowledge and help one another. Though our opinions of the authenticity of their militaria has been negative, I hope we have helped Jon and Leo, and can help them avoid reproductions in the future. I want to thank them both for allowing criticism of their pieces.

Regards,
John H

[ERIC S.]

To Jon and Leo - we've all been there and felt the displeasure and disappointment of learning something was bad when you thought with all of your heart that you had a wonderful item. Chin up and carry on. Not an easy pill to swallow, but I guarantee it will help you out in the future. "You haven't truly learned until you've been badly burned " Sorry guys, but, it DOES get better!
ERIC

[Willi Z.]

Nicely said John! I hope Jon and Leo become contributing members of the forum and take advantage of the knowledge of those who have also learned from their past mistakes. Any advanced collector who will state that they have not made costly mistakes when they started out, it not being honest with themselves. In fact, many advanced collectors continue to make mistakes as new reproductions are introduced to the market before the word gets out. Sadly, it is part of our hobby. Another reason why participation in this forum is a perfect tool to get the word out and keep each other informed on newly made items.

Willi

[DaveJ]

My first post was 4 fake luft badges that I had $2000 in trade involved with. To say that getting burned hard starting out, I have been collecting for almost 25 years and the fakes are good and getting better. I think the best $20 a collector could spend is in a membership to this site and post everything you potentially want to buy and get some more "gut" feeling than your own. I got totally screwed on my trade by Roger Honts, self proclamed big time collector, he dumped some killer fakes and I took the bait like an eager fish.
Totally devistated is how I felt, and have since been weeding out items that are turning out to be fake( too many), but I want to know so I do not unknowingly trade them off to another collector .
Sorry you two guys have had to find out the bad news, but I swear you are not alone, and the fact that you are here means the likelyhood of getting taking in again has been greatly reduced. I was surfing the forum and found a post from a 9 year old collector, Boy if he sticks with it what kind of collection will he have in 25 years,
Well best of luck on every item collected next,
Dave