Scary 22 Juli 1944 Wound Badge Repro

[Craig Gottlieb]

Dietrich: I respect your opinion, and thank you for your comments. Tell you what - this piece is hereby not for sale. My mission was pretty much accomplished by posting it for sale anyway - to provide a detailed example of this reproduction, advertised as such, to personally learn from it, and to destroy any rumblings that I bought this piece for anything other than honorable purposes. I hope someone has learned something from this folly of mine. Oh yeah, I also ordered one of those Knights Cross documents floating around - but I had it custom made with my name on it, and the date of award as my birthday. Is there a problem with this?

[Al P]

Another thread with so much potential for people to learn something sidetracked with personal BS. Thanks for posting pics of the badge in question Craig, it might just save someone out there a lot of bucks, which is always a good thing.

Al

[Dietrich Maerz]

Craig,

a nice thing to do! The Knights Cross document with your name on it is not a fake or repro, it's a joke and a good one at that. If you find a buyer for this and he pays $ 15,000.- you are my kind of guy! Why? Because it is not re-sellable (at least not to a serious collector, I hope).
If this badge in question would have "Repro" stamped into it, I would not say a word. Would it still be 'worth' $ 1,500.- to some people? I doubt that, the price would slip to $ 40,- right then and there!

And that is the whole point!

Thanks for taking this unholy piece off the market and for keeping it in your private possesion forever!

Yours truly,

Dietrich

[Michael Kuligowski]

A repro is a repro. I wouldn't buy it for any price. Somone is going to buy it and sell it on to some unsuspecting buyer, that's obvious. Besides I wouldn't buy it because it is inciting repros to be made. We must boycott all repros possible in order to save the future of the hobby...

GOOD point Tom !!!!!
collector and dealer - selling fakes (even with best intentions)... it's just not the way I can think about this hobby..
This hobby is a non profit passion for me... that's the way I love history.. and express my respect for people who fought 60 years ago...

And words like" collection filler" etc... - doesnt mean nothing to me ... - its piece of jewelery - and I dont dollect silver.. but history..

just my point of view.... and my way of collecting...
this is free world - we can buy and sell what we want....
cheers guys !!

[Tom M]

Was this necessary though?

"Withdrawn for sale due to silly forum complaints"

[MH184]

I agree Dietrich


How can you justify this badge Craig when in your last posts you exclaim there are better: ie 'slightly more original looking examples than this one', now theres a contradiction in relation which should be in reflection to the price which was due to the I think quality and cost of craftmanship.

Kind regards and respectfully,


Marcus

[Michael Kuligowski]

Come on Pascal, what discussion about a fake badge?

Craig has opened the door to comments. Protecting Craig from his own posts seems...

Badge fake.

Me no buy fillers.

Price high.

Close thread.

[Craig Gottlieb]

Tom: Because I think some of the complaints WERE silly. However, I am now removing this from my site entirely, and actually wish I had never endeavored to do a nice thing by spending my hard earned money to educate myself and others. My name was uncessecarily dragged through the mud for trying to do something nice. Oh well. To those who learned something valuable by my futile exercise, I am very glad you did.

[Dietrich Maerz]

Craig,

I will not drag this on any further, but allow me two more comments, please:

If you wanted to educate us, which is a very nice thing to do, you could have just posted it here on the forum for education and discussion. No need to put a price tag for sale on it to discuss it.


I don't see any 'silly' comments in this thread. The essence always was and is that a Fake is a Fake! And that's not silly, that's one of the the purposes of this community here. I certainly don't think that I made a silly comment about the issue nor your person. We should not generalize things so fast.



Anyhow, I thank you for the pictures and the decission to pull the thing completely!

Dietrich

[Tom M]

Tom: Because I think some of the complaints WERE silly. However, I am now removing this from my site entirely, and actually wish I had never endeavored to do a nice thing by spending my hard earned money to educate myself and others. My name was uncessecarily dragged through the mud for trying to do something nice. Oh well. To those who learned something valuable by my futile exercise, I am very glad you did.

I really don't understand what's going on here. Why put that kind of comment on your website when you agree with our concerns . I would have liked to study that badge more but I only asked why it was necessary for G*ds sake

[Hasse.M]

Tom: Because I think some of the complaints WERE silly. However, I am now removing this from my site entirely, and actually wish I had never endeavored to do a nice thing by spending my hard earned money to educate myself and others. My name was uncessecarily dragged through the mud for trying to do something nice. Oh well. To those who learned something valuable by my futile exercise, I am very glad you did.

Threads like this about dealers pop-up from time to time. A moderator cleans up the worst comment's. After a week or so everything goes back to the ordinary "forum" life...


After all I dont think you'r name has lost anything in value...
But you'r site surely got more viewers then ever.

Regards

[Michael Everett]

Nuts!

ALCON,

What some of you have said/implied regarding Craig Gottleib's ethical behavior is completely out-of-line. Enough said.

Brian S----this is what you consider civil?

MICHAEL EVERETT

[Laurence Strong]

Hi Craig, Thanks for the E-mail with the pic's of the badge in question. Rest assured that I will examine it closly. And when I can find a photo of a real 20 Jul Wound Badge, I will examine them both with great intrest to see the difference's. I was following another thread on the same topic here and it lead me to the TRD, where they had another 1 of these posted. The similarity of the two was there. Then I followed the post on the reliability of that establishment . I was struck by the apperance of 2 German Crosses in silver, I was of the assumption that these were extremly scarce!!! and the odds of 2 of them appearing in the same store struck me as suspicious.


Once again thank you for your help

[WARLORD]

Museum copys are what they mean, there is a difference between them and a fake. A fake is made and sold to decieve. When you visit a great number of exabitions you will in fact be lookig at a musseum copy. I have provided for one of our Navel museums a copy of a Victoria Cross. In furniture, reproductions are fully accepted as what they are and collected as such. The efforts that go into their production is legion. The right glue has to be used, even dust is extracted from other pieces to put in the draws to give the corrrect smell. Some cases the reprodution can cost as much as the original. But collectors do not mind this. Compleating a set ofchairs with one two or more reproductions makes the compleat set.



In my own ollection I have a piece that was constructed as the original. Subsequently I HAVE BEEN ASKED ON MANY OCCASIONS TO SELL IT. BUT IT IS NOT FOR SALE, IT TO IS A ONE OFF. TO SUCH AN EXTENT IT HAS BEEN USED IN A NUMBR OF HIGHLY RESPECTED REFERENCE BOOKS. It now hs its own value forwhat it is, a restrike of the original. If you are serrious about collecting reproductions (Musseum Copys) are an important part of knolledge. It is better to have seen and handeld a clone of an award, than only looked at them in books. But the production of these is a very costly job. This is represented in the price of the Wound badge. When some one quotes a $40 fake, it goes to prove he has not seen a real badge let alone held one. A Souval copy of the German Order sell in the region of £2500. His awards have now become a collectble in there own right. The last was sold at wallis & wallis some years ago for such a price. If an individual collector dose not want to have such items that is his right. Others will. I know of coin collectors who look hard for the British museum copies of coins from its collection. Is one of the Worlds formost museums making fakes?

The last part is also obvious, some of the pieces are so rare that even if you had unlimited funds were could you buy an original. A known 20 July badge any grade would comand a value that would be extreemly hard to evaluate. Even if this was found what garuntee would there be that the owner would sell? Thus a copy is possibly all that could be obtained, $1500 is small price for such a copy.

[Joseph D'Errico]

Funny guys You know I should probably point out that the WWI Cased cross is also named, and comes in the original shipping carton, as well as the box Heck, I am expensive, but not THAT expensive.

Regarding the price of the would badge - the fact of the matter is that they are being produced in very limited quantity, and cost, from the manufacturer, more than you realize. To those that balk at the price of the thing, ask yourselves what's so intrinsically valuable about a Rolex that they cost $12,000 for a thousand dollars worth of gold and some nifty innards that don't keep time very well. Price is nothing more than someone is willing to pay. The manufacturer makes these, sells them, I was happy enough to buy one through a 3rd party just to see what they look like.

Pay close attention to the front of the badge, as it is what is most convincing. The back has all sorts of problems, but these problems have been modified and adjusted to suit individual "orders" shall we say - at least, that is what I can discern from examples out there that have more correct (or less correct) hinges, catches, and maker and content markings. The obverse, I believe, has NOT changed. It is also manufactured in all three versions.

I have learned all I needed to about the differences between this version and the real ones, and think it's frankly worth the $1500. However, as always, the market will either bear the asking price or not. Until then, It's a cool thing to have. The person who buys this will probably also be the person who spends mega-bucks for a very rare and early reproduction dagger. The market is out there for reproductions of this caliber.

My true intent of listing it was not necessarily to sell it, though I will sell it, and will indeed have a difficult time buying another one. The real reason I listed it was to provide a concrete example of what this badge is, what it looks like. Also, word on the street was that I did in fact buy this item, and I didn't want anyone to think I was purchasing it for nefarious reasons. I'm sure some of the other discussion venues will have a field day with it, but oh well! Such is life. As a good friend said to me after a long day of serious ribbing, "Hey, Craig. I'm a military antique dealer - I don't have feelings to hurt."

Dear Craig,

That is a very punitive response, I just tagged this thread and read through it. Too bad that your being ribbed , but I have been their on two pieces. I honestly do care what people think at the end of the day. I really can't believe that your selling that piece for $1,500.00 . How can you justify that, that is just plain horse dung about the manufacturing cost et.

Personally after watching your medal offerings, your prices are way out of line. The real tragedy is that you have become a money changer and messenger for others on your medals without doing your homework.


I have nothing against you personaly, but let's cut the cards and call it what it is. But, then again I did take the bait on the retired Pilot Badge that I got toasted on. I hope that you ; as I have wake up and get back to fundamentals and not high profile dealers leading you by the nose. They will survive and do well at it, but can you keep taking the hits ?

Wish you the best, but wake up as I did. You know what I am talking about.

Best,
JD