Breaking down the low rim fake

[Ronny.R]

Hi guys

I will try to show how to identify and avoid the low rim fake black wound badge


The veins are thick and almost completely straight, the leaves look almost sterile.

The rosette "Bow", the height of the outer part and the inner part are the same, no 3D effect

No rear rivet on the helmet

On my badge, the height of the hinge / hook is very high
The height of the rim is almost non existent

Hope this helps a bit

Cheers,
Ronny

[Hans N]

Good work Ronny!

I´ll add some info and history behind these here as well.

The entire rim all around the badge is too low if you compare it with originals and the hinge is is very high in comparison with other badges. Initially these also had a very grainy finish. The feel in hand these are very light, between 6-7 grams only which is too light. This fake has a unique design that don´t match any known original design, it´s completely made up. This in it self makes it hard to explain what is wrong with them in comparison with original wb´s.

The story about these are that at they started to turn up on GCA back in the days, think this was before 2010. And as a "experianced" wound badge collector the gut feeling was the first signal something was wrong. Next thing that warned us was the design it self. Leafs with very pronounced/high stems on them as Ronny has shown with his pics, the low flattened dot pattern and the artificial rust on some of them. Later on one seller alledgely had only black WB´s of this design in mass, like 25-30 for sale on a fair in Germany! Price was 12 Euro!!

Other ways to sell them was to jump on the Deschler hoard train and adding a makers mark etc.

[Hans N]

Here is one with the artificial rust from my fake collection.

[jmcm]

Thanks for the info, it really helps.

[Hans N]

Maker marked 1 from my reference files, think it is in Andreas collection

[kronn]

Very good information
Thanks guys

Alejandro

[Hans N]

Maker marked 2

[Hans N]

Here is one with a catch variation

[Hans N]

There is even a cut out version

[Mike Kenny]

Ronny, great write-up - thanks!

Hans, great additional examples!

Hopefully no-one gets stung by these again as there are some pretty obvious tells.

Regards
Mike

[Guy smith]

Great thread guys,you can't always tell the hight of the rim with a strait on reverse shot.

But now it should be easy.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

Great thread and very helpful to dissect exactly what to look for as well as the history behind this dangerous fake. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

Tom

[Stepdale]

Thank you very much for making this thread, Ronnie and Hans. I would recommend pinning it.
Dale

[Arctic War]

Hi Guys,

Very nice informative thread!
You have done some good work

Kind regards,

AW

[toot]

a picture is rely worth a thousand words. thanks for the history lession.