3 x Pilot Badge

[Emeredato]

Hi gents,
today a got a LW Grouping on my table. All nice so far and then I found this strange damaged Pilot Badge. Searched and found nothing.
I friend told me about a possible french made badge......
Opinions welcome !
Regards
Sascha

[Emeredato]

Strange Bird !!!!!!!!!

[kefru177]

Your strange bird is a fake bird, probably produced last year in Eastern Europe.

[e-maus]

Hi Sascha
The first bird is unmarked BSW, the second ... looks a fake Juncker cast
greetings
Jacek

[Sebastien T]

Hello Sacha,

Good BSW, the juncker is indeed a fake. The cloth i like.it a lot.


Seb

[Emeredato]

Thanks guys, now I know ;-)

Regards
Sascha

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Sascha,

I can only agree with the others, the BSW and cloth are fine originals.

the Juncker is either a poorly cast fake, or an original that has been poorly repaired and refinished with a weird, thick finish.

Tom

[Patrick W]

If these came from an estate and you can confirm the source then i would say the cast pilot is genuine front or unit produced, I have owned one exactly the same that came from a US veterans estate and Carsten Baldes had one in a case as well a while back which I believe had provenance to it.
All 3 are cast from Juncker badges with identical setup and file marks.

[Midas]

Fully agree with you Patrick . And I had another one in hands which was a part of a reliable grouping . I think that this badges have some future ahead , since properly researched .

regards
Darius

[Patrick W]

Here's another one with slightly different setup, sadly no provenance to it....

[Gary B]

Provenance would be a must for this cast badge....without it, it is just a cast copy of a Junker; even with provenance the owner must be comfortable with the piece since there will always be a shadow of doubt over it.

(As an aside in American wing collecting there is a subset of cast wings that are perfectly acceptable and in fact priced at a premium over die struck wings - POW wings and wings made in the CBI theater)

Gary B

[jlga]

Hi guys, since you are bringing up cast fakes, is there any evidence that cast fakes were produced during war time?, the same as today there are copies of brands?

[Patrick W]

Nothing produced wartime was fake

Field made awards exist in huge variety. Of this pilot i would suggest it is more a local or unit commissioned production as I have seen several exactly the same, a couple in seemingly legit estates.

Of interest to your question I think would be the J. Deutschbein pilot which is an early and scarce maker and IMO cast their badges from a BSW badge- they are poor quality and exhibit obvious die casting traits.

[Thomas Durante]

Provenance would be a must for this cast badge....without it, it is just a cast copy of a Junker; even with provenance the owner must be comfortable with the piece since there will always be a shadow of doubt over it.

This is exactly how I see it. Even with provenance, these could still be fakes. I would need to see a period picture of the pilot wearing this exact badge. There are plenty of examples of fakes being found from vets, unfortunately too many times and that has created alot of havoc in our hobby.

For all we know, some dealer cast a bunch of these badges in the 1950s and they have been dispersed over the years, some finding their way into vets possession....

Tom