HJ Buckle, good or bad?

[Marc verstraete]

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[buckle1]

"Wow' Marc,

First I had no idea these were being faked. With that said -about the markings, I had a HJ leader marked in the identical fashion with the offset RZM mark, I also had a High Leader HJ with the markings in the same location facing the same direction but not off set. I agree having the buckle in hand would make life easier but if the only issue is the markings I would still say that this buckle is good.

Bill

[David North]

HJ High Leaders

Brilliant buckle Marc.

This is an interesting subject and even though I have no real collecting enthusiasm for leader or officer type buckles.

Although I have never knowingly handled a fake HJ Leaders buckle, I have always been aware towards the possibilty of fakes. The number of buckles not being faked is of course dwindling fast and the HJ leaders appears a not too difficult one to copy and certainly, by the fairly simple construction. In addition, it is reasonable to think that due to the immense slight variations within obverse designs found on the HJ box buckle, the same may apply to the leaders pattern.

The slightly eccentric positioning of the markings on the buckle in question does not overly worry me, albeit being somewhat surprising.

I think that we are all in agreement that an actual handling and close inspection of the buckle would more than likely answer the question.

My retrospective query however is an open question insofar as, does anyone have any images of an absolutely certain, fake HJ Leaders?

There seem to be a few HJ Leader buckles for sale at the moment, although I have never thought of this buckle as particuarly rare, however they all seem to enjoy common features with no obvious point (to me at least) indicating that they could be fakes.

Regards,

David