A Gallery of Fake PABs

[Bob Lusk]

backs..

[Don D.]

It always amazes me how a dealer can stand behind his table and keep a straight face while customers look at these things.
Don

[Philippe DB]

Hi Guys,

Thought I add one more PAB to this list.

Only recently I received some e-mails from other members asking my opinion about this badge. Although I thought is was fairly common knowledge that these were copies that doesn't seem to be the case for everyone.

So by adding it to this thread I can only hope that people will find it more easely when they are doing searches on the forum.

This is what I like to call the "Wernstein" design fake. Once your familiar with this design it's very easy to recognize it because there is only one thing you need to remember. This "Wernstein" design was NEVER manufactured as a hollow PAB.

The design itself IMO derived from the BH Mayer/F&R design. The same artist created this Wernstein design with mass production in mind and copies of the die to make the original were sold to Wernstein, RRS, RS, AWS, EWE, Fo, and the companies responsible for the so called "Flatback" and "Disched" PAB's and some unknown makers. All the originals are made out of zinc and are solid or scooped variants with the exception of the semi-hollow RRS.

Although the design of the fake is almost perfect, the fact that its hollow and made of a modern material are very easy giveaways as long as you are aware of the above. I'm still wondering how they make these badges because as you will see the reverse is far from a mirror image of the observe. My best guess would be that they found an original observe die (with some wear to the left track chains) and used something else to fabricate the reverse imprint.

Taken in to account how many of these badges you see on offer all over the world they are probably still producing these today.

So let's hope this saves somebody some hard earned cash in the future.

KR
Philippe

[Philippe DB]

reverse

[Philippe DB]

bronze 2

[Philippe DB]

reverse 2

[Philippe DB]

The same in silver

[Philippe DB]

reverse silver

[Philippe DB]

And a good reverse pic of a silver grade. Notice the crapy looking hinge presure foot.