Destroyer Badge Help

[John R.]

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[John R.]

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[John R.]

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[John R.]

Thanks Hubert for the above images.

[Norm F]

Hi Guys,

At the risk of opening a can of worms I'm dragging up this thread again. I know some feel that such discussions potentially benefit fakers, but personally I share Daniel's opinion that fakers make their own observations, and our analyses benefit the collecting community more than the fakers by keeping up with them.

I have to admit after staring at the JFS badge from Staegemeir's site (not the badge that opened the thread) I still can't see anything wrong with it. If you consider the views expressed so far they are divided:

John, Jeff, Hubert, Gary - looks bad?
Alex, Andy, me - looks good
Daniel - has a chance
Mark - ?

Again, to be clear, I'm not talking about the badge which opened the thread which lacks the hinge crimp, but rather the one from Staegemeir's site. So far, Hubert is the only one who has made some concrete observations, and John provided some comparator obverse images, but no one can say why the badge would be bad? In fact, when you look at these comparisons between the Staegemeir site badge and Lorenzo's JFS example you see almost exact correlation in my view.

It behooves us to expose fakes like those made and sold by Staegemeir at every opportunity, but we must also never allow the few genuine badges on his site to potentially tar the reputation of a line of good badges. I welcome further comments and observations to enhance our understanding.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Catches and surface details match as well. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I'd go out on a limb and say that's one of the originals among the fakes on Staegemeir's site.

[Mark McShane]

Hi Norm,

Thanks for bringing this one back up as I missed it when it was first posted. having compared the badge in question with both my own badge and some other originals here and GCA I would say that the badge is a fake. I see discrepencies on the eagle head and feather pattern. Also there are some odd marks in the wave pattern and on the ship superstructure. Thats just the obverse. So my opinion is that is not original but as always I'm open to debate and willing would like to hear other comments.

Regards,

Mark

[Norm F]

Hi Norm,

Thanks for bringing this one back up as I missed it when it was first posted. having compared the badge in question with both my own badge and some other originals here and GCA I would say that the badge is a fake. I see discrepencies on the eagle head and feather pattern.
...

Hi Mark,

Thanks for chipping in. Here is a comparison of the eagle with two "good" comparators from previous GCA postings (a couple of different orientations of the same collage). I can't see any discrepancies.

Could you please post some images illustrating your concerns?

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Hm. The upload feature keeps resizing the photos smaller. Trying again cropped into two attachments.

[Mark McShane]

Norm,

I'm on my laptop at the moment (office dismantled for decorating). When I get my desktop back together I'll post some pics.

Mark

[Norm F]

Hi Norm,
...
Also there are some odd marks in the wave pattern and on the ship superstructure. Thats just the obverse. So my opinion is that is not original but as always I'm open to debate and willing would like to hear other comments.
...

Hi Mark,

And here's a comparison of the waves and ship. Again I can't see any anomalies? In fact, you can even see the same streaky finish of the bow and the bow wave on the Staegemeir site badge and the comparator, and even on your example of the badge which you had posted earlier.

Cheers.
---Norm

[Nordmark]

Hi Norm,



thank you for your illustration and for bringing this up again. I seriously hope that we don´t need this "micro-surgery" for collecting in the future.

I still think the badge is a good one and if it would be possible to examine the piece in hand, everything would be absolutely clear. In my opinion it is way harder to build your opinion on these pics. If you had the luck of holding a few more of these in your hands, it is always a clear thing and you will notice we are still decades away from the perfect copy. The crux is the internet platforms with bad pictures, digital reworked pictures etc..

Regarding this particular badge: I believe these are genuine traces of wear and zinc as base material. Something I always look out for on such badges.


Regards,


Daniel

[Mark McShane]

Norm,

Here's what I see, forgive the quickly marked picture. There is a line of dots in tyhe wave pattern. The superstructure trellis is not as clear and symmetrical as other originals and although not clear in this picture (there is a picture at an angle from the side that shows it better) there is a circular indent on the superstructure.

Mark

[John R.]

I still do not like it. Of course, it could be original to the times, but just appearing on this site makes you want to look at it far more closely. Are all the items there fake, probably not.

What struck me was an overall feel of the badge being wrong due to the waves and ocean. This could be due to lighting, refinishing, polishing, who knows? Just looks too sharp and defined to me.

Same with the anchor.

Looking to the ship, the area above the bridge seems off also. Again, it could be due to the photo itself, but it does not look like the other examples to me.

I think if we had it in hand had like Daniel said, we would know. Also we could take measurements of the badge to see if that was close or not.

John