Mountain trooper Edelweis for your review.

[Johnny R]

The sad thing is that unexperienced buyers / collectors like myself trust to get only originals if bought at a dealer site.... honestly not always right.

I do not want to "fingerpoint" I'm just a little surpriced and 'now' even more careful if I intend to buy something from a dealer.


Alex

A large amount of items on many dealers sits are not original or unmodified etc.. There are good dealers, better dealers and unquestionably dishonest dealers. In my experience many dealers are collectors of items in one area and do not have a lot of knowledge in all areas of collectables etc. It is a brave new world with current prices, demand for "original items" and the skill of fakers. Many dealers are victims and are selling junk bought from people they trusted or who convinced them items were real You just need to test the waters and feel the ropes etc. Books are the first things to buy.

[Lemm]

Yes that is good advice and so are the books however even here there are may areas of third reich collecting that are not covered by books or briefly mentioned at best. You can get a good in depth book on EK's and a lot of the badges and of course some uniform items but I have yet to see a book that covers in depth items like the edelweiss patch/badge bearing in mind the number of variants there are out there.
I guess it all boils down to just what you want to collect.

Phil