I do not like these. On first glance they looked believable, but the pins stood out for me. The pins look completely out of place imo, with the wrong style of bend, and where the tension foot touches the badge it appears to be too low.
From these pics, the catches do not look textbook, and both badges have several flaws that are the same. For example, the dent in the bayonet handle and the damage to the edge of the badge, is the same on both.
Please post close ups of both so we can see better surface detail and how the catches look from the side. Can you please also show a close up of just under the hinge with the pin up, it looks like there is another tension foot marking closer to the hinge, and if there is, it might indicate where the pin touched on the original badge, if these are in fact copies.
Hi Greame, some pics, i hope they are right, both catches have defenetly heavy file marks. Think you are right ,these are fakes and they fooled me...:banghead
I agree with Graeme, these are well made fakes unfortunately. Graeme gives a very good explanation of what is wrong with these, several little details.
Well spotted Graeme.
Tom
If it doesn't have a hinge and catch, I'm not interested......well, maybe a little
New Book - The German Close Combat Clasp of World War II
I agree that these are both fakes, based on all of the observations outlined by Graeme. Well-spotted, indeed!
Both of these badges display the same rough edge at the very top. This, no doubt, marks the location of the casting gateway i.e., the channel through which the molten metal was poured into the mold cavity.
These badges can be tricky because they are cast as were the originals. It is very important to examine these closely. But these cast fakes will lack the crispness and fine detail found on the originals. As convincing as the fakes may be, they will still fall short, detail-wise, when compared to an original. The fakes will also measure smaller than an original and it will be very noticeable when a fake and original are held side-by-side.
Originals were produced by injection-molding (high-pressure casting). It is this process which allows for the super-crisp and minute details found on the originals, and this level of detail cannot be replicated by cruder forms of casting. Injection-molding will also yield badges with very consistent dimensional accuracy. The originals will spec out to within very close tolerances, regardless of whether from mold one, two, three, or four.
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