Anatomy of a Fraud

[InfanterieSammler]

Last year I purchased a KC group from a forum member, my first Western Front KC group, so I was very excited. A couple of weeks ago this member contacted me to say that someone had contacted him offering a Silver WB document for the soldier. The group only includes his Black WB document. Of course, I was interested. This member was kind enough to broker a deal, paying out of pocket for the document, for which I reimbursed him. The document finally arrived this week.

It begins...

[InfanterieSammler]

The document - with only the naked eye it is fairly easy to see that the name, unit, and date have actually been rubbed out. When holding to the paper to the light, it is very clear how much thinner the paper is in these areas.

[InfanterieSammler]

Closeup

[InfanterieSammler]

The reverse side

[InfanterieSammler]

It gets really interesting under a black light, as one can see that the document was also washed in those areas to remove any further traces.

[Tony T-S]

The one that is most obvious is the unit. How disappointing.
Ed: with the black light shot its very clear.

[InfanterieSammler]

Close up one can actually see the entire document was originally written in pencil, noting the original award being 'Schwarz'.

[InfanterieSammler]

On the name line, we can also clearly see 'R. R' at the beginning.

[InfanterieSammler]

So what started out as an original Black WB document completely filled out in pencil, to most likely an anonymous soldier. We have a document that has been fabricated to look like that of a famous RKT. The faker even got the unit and time frame for the award correct, so he obviously did a little research before creating and offering this one.

I should also add, note the burned corners (top right and bottom right). I almost cringed when I took this one of package and saw the burned corners. Right away that gave me a bad feeling.

And so it goes...

Best,
John

[jmark]

Well, this is a new twist: instead of creating a fake and releasing it onto the market, the fakers are now targeting a specific person. It'll be interesting to hear what can be learnt from the forum member who brokered the deal.

Jason

[Michael Fay]

I should also add, note the burned corners (top right and bottom right). I almost cringed when I took this one of package and saw the burned corners. Right away that gave me a bad feeling.


Best,
John

Burned corners!
OMG
That is what I used to do when I was 8 years old and making pirate treasure maps.
That was so long ago, I forgot about that childish "fakers trick"

I can see how your heart would just sink at seeing that come out of the package.

Good photos : no questions as to your claims.You have proven them .

[Tony T-S]

Heavens, I hadn't even noticed the corners, that's just a joke.

[InMyScopeOIF]

Is anything genuine anymore?

I want to thank Mr. Donovon for sharing this unbelievable assault on the collectors world? I am relatively new to the collection world and I have become so paranoid and so dissapointed with what people will do for a buck.

Is there any hope for someone like me getting into this hobby relatively new only 5 years? How can I be sure anything I get is ligit? At some point you do have to trust people, right?

I started out collecting KC sigs, Ace's, etc....
I really want to start collecting documents and Solbuchs, Wehrpas etc, but how can I start? Where does someone like me go to find a genuine authentic items that I can be compfortable knowing that what I am holding in my hand is what it is suppose to be?

Black lights, burned corners, washing, rubbing, this all smacks of the early check fraud days not a honorable society of people who want to collect this material.

Matt Help?

[Simon O.]

Interesting attempt, thanks for posting this John, it gives a good heads up on how to identify tampered with documents

[Dick Pumphrey]

Fakers........

Hi John,
I'm sorry that you had to suffer this. It really is sad that people will go to such extremes to make a dishonest buck. Besides robbing somebody of hard earned dollars they have ruined a historical document.
I hope you can recover your money. Thanks for sharing your "detective" work. Take care, my friend!
Best Regards,
Dick