HJ Buckle Question

[Brian R]

Hi Guys - I'm not a buckle guy but have a quick question - and I have crappy pictures too. From reading this forum, it seems that M4/23 HJ buckles are often faked. Knowing that the pictures suck, can anyone get a sense of this belt buckle? If it is a cast fake, would the obverse have this kind of wear?

Thanks in advance!
Brian

[Belten]

These are often faked as you know, so it's not really possible to tell for certain from those pictures. The fakes are cast, so if you see casting flaws on the prongs or elsewhere on the buckle then you know it's fake. It's also possible to detect fakes by the color and size.

From the pictures, the front makes it look real and the back makes it look fake (is it the same color in person?). Maybe someone else will have a more definitive opinion, but I do think that better photos would be necessary.

[Brian R]

Thanks so much for the reply. I don't have the buckle, hence the crappy pics. It is among a group of other things - all of which seem okay but I won't really know until I see them in hand. The reverse pic is especially bad because I tried to blow it up a bit - the low resolution really makes it look like a crappy cast job (and it's not a very good picture to begin with). Here it is at its normal size. As you can see, it's a poor image. However, the resolution is slightly better and the quality of the buckle does not look as bad as in the first image.

Thanks again,
B

[Brian R]

Ok, here it is. It looks good in hand, but this isn't my field. There is a lot of wear and there is schmutz caked on the front. The reverse seems very worn - the rough finish does not look like a cast job in person - it looks more like wear and corrosion.

[Brian R]

3

[Belten]

In my opinion, it's a very worn original.

[brus]

In my opinion, it's a very worn original.

Agree

Regards
brus

[Brian R]

Guys, really appreciate the feedback!