Viktor Kempf on ebay

[amiklic1]

Interesting ;-)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KRIEGSMARINE...item4ae2509d36

[John R.]

Yep, a problem well known to Norm, Dietrich and I. Lot of wrong information in this booklet.

John

[Norm F]

Yes, Viktor Kempf trawls the internet for photos and compiles them (without permission) and with many errors into his "publications" which he sells for profit. His Minesweeper and U-Boat "catalogs" were already kicked off iTunes for copyright violations so he sells them on his own website and on ebay.

Here's just a small sampling of his ebay Minesweeper catalog. The Deumer timeline is full of errors including variants that don't exist and he has trouble telling the difference between Tombak and zinc examples. The "Tombak" example that he shows actually uses the very images posted by Mark McShane's of his unique mint zinc example with an unusual L/11 stamp in the centre of the reverse. Mark posted these images for discussion back in 2009 and if I recall correctly he bought this example on e-stand from PODO01 from New York. Viktor Kempf lifted the images, mistook it for Tombak, made up arbitrary values and even claims that an original Deumer envelope (which happens to be very rare) is worth $45...

[Norm F]

Here are Mark McShane's images posted in 2009. The black background was deleted for Viktor Kempf's publication.

[Norm F]

.

[Norm F]

hinge. All the same images lifted by Viktor Kempf.

[Norm F]

Here's another example. This is Tom Yanacek's one-of-a-kind prototype zinc Deumer shown in Viktor Kempf's catalog. In his own "timeline" Kempf calls this Type 3.121 (gold reverse) but labels the images Type 3.120 (silver reverse) -- in fact there's no such thing as a badge with this setup and a silver reverse. He gives it an arbitrary value range of $50 to $450. I'm pretty sure Tom didn't get his badge in the St. Petersburg, Russia gun show...

[Norm F]

Here are Tom's original previously posted images, lifted by Kempf. These same images were used in "The Kriegsmarine Awards" (copyright B&D publishing) with permission and acknowledgement to Tom.

[Norm F]

hardware.

[Norm F]

Kempf's whole catalog is like this, full of other people's images and combined with mis-information.

A lot of my Minesweeper images (taken by my camera) turned up in there too without permission, cobbled together with other people's images. He even Photoshopped some images to try to disguise their distinctiveness like my Tombak Juncker Minesweeper shown here where he removed the sailor's initials. He quotes a value of my badge using Weitze's website as a reference, despite the fact that mine was purchased from Jamie Cross in England and is a very uncommon variant with a gilt reverse.

[BubbaZ]

What a bloody crook this viktor kempf is, I am speachless...
He'd better did not steal any of my badges since if he did I will not leave it like this! But how on earth there are so many good guys in his accnowledgements?
Cheers,
Hubert

[Nordmark]

That is really bad behaviour and a crime in most countries. It is quite sad that you can only post pics with big fat watermark now...


Regards,


Daniel

[Norm F]

Viktor Kempf (natod777 on ebay) is the same fellow with the 1960's S&L unfinished planchet of the Legion Condor Tank Badge offered on ebay for $7550. (He calls it a 1st pattern jeweller-made Spanish manufacture badge...)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNIQUE-Germa...item4ad4f40ca8

Here's a previous discussion on this '57-era planchet:
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ht=LCTB&page=5

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Another reference on the net...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ice-probe.html

[Giel VW]

What a rip off!