Panzer Pioneer Black Wrapper II

[phild]

So far, the general thrust here seems to be to avoid the "high-end" pieces which seem to afford fakers with their highest profit margins. It has been noted that while "a few babies might be thrown out with the bath water", that is the price you must pay, in terms of skepticism, to sleep well at night. I have to wonder if that approach is really the best for this hobby, or if we can do better.

I agree, this is also the point that I have been trying to make. Back 30 to 40 years ago it was not considered reasonable to try and make a passable fake uniform from the ground up. The problem was back then orignal tunics (and I guess wraps as well) being bumped with insignia to pose as Generals, W-SS and elite unit uniforms. Of course this is still being done. The first PZ wraps that I was aware of being faked from scratch (serious attempts at least) showed up in the late 1970s....one was sold by the "Cracked Pot" and re-called by them when they saw others like it show up shortly afterward......those guys were very honest and did this re-call on thier own eithics.

I lot if not most of these early fakes were sewn with Poylester thread (cotton/poly blend actually) and did not really concentrate on innner backing details and many other details...maybe a joke today...but then most were caught so off guard that these were passing for a short while with fairly careful collectors.

Starting in the 80s the fake uniforms got better and much more numerous....by the early 90s some very good ones were showing up as has been suggested on this thread.

We are all interested in how they have become in the last 10 years or so.

[Ohlau]

It is still possible today to acquire, at not a high cost, paints and inks which are undetectable from wartime-produced products, except, sometimes, by the most comprehensive (and expensive) scientific testing. Restoration facilities in art museums employ these regularly. (Of course, use by fakers would depend on how sophisticated they wish -or have- to be.) I recommend the book "Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries" by Paul Craddock, a former curator at the British Museum, for some insight into this field. Most recently updated in 2009, it would not be surprising if it will need to be brought even more current soon to reflect further advances in some fields (especially the copying of metal pieces by computer-assisted technologies).

So far, the general thrust here seems to be to avoid the "high-end" pieces which seem to afford fakers with their highest profit margins. It has been noted that while "a few babies might be thrown out with the bath water", that is the price you must pay, in terms of skepticism, to sleep well at night. I have to wonder if that approach is really the best for this hobby, or if we can do better.

Images from museum are different story in comparison to uniforms where faker need very little paint to stamp wool or markings.
Some kinde of chemicals are very hard to reproduction (different technology
in comparison to modern). Just like early helmets paints - mass produktion same (in 100%) paints is almost impossible.
Trying to make ideal repro paint (same chemical compositionas pre war or war made) means also a lot of technical trouble and high cost.
Simply - if nobody make test sample from suspect item and well known original then we will never know what is the true.
There is no ideal fake.

[Mike Davis]

So far, the general thrust here seems to be to avoid the "high-end" pieces which seem to afford fakers with their highest profit margins. It has been noted that while "a few babies might be thrown out with the bath water", that is the price you must pay, in terms of skepticism, to sleep well at night. I have to wonder if that approach is really the best for this hobby, or if we can do better.

We can do better.

Despite the poll results, I just don't think it is that difficult to make a call - yet. Although the craft of the fakers is improving, shortcomings visible in photos are magnified, and additional errors identified, once the item is in hand.

In my view, it would be a mistake to publicly list the problem areas of these copies on an open forum. In the past couple of years we have seen vast improvement in the new 'products' over what has been shown in this thread. Why help the fakers perfect their craft? If it were just a case of reverse engineering, the M43 and wrap super fakes would already be perfect. But they aren't.

Any item is liable to be faked nowadays, not just at the high end. We just saw a thread posted in which a common black Heer NCO wrap was outed. But I do agree that unusual items deserve more scrutiny. Wraps for field marshals or tram conductors will raise a flag for most people but when one sees piles of HG wraps available at shows a little warning bell should go off: proceed with caution and if you're uncertain ask the advice of someone with proven expertise before buying.

[Glenn McInnes]

In my view, it would be a mistake to publicly list the problem areas of these copies on an open forum. In the past couple of years we have seen vast improvement in the new 'products' over what has been shown in this thread. Why help the fakers perfect their craft? If it were just a case of reverse engineering, the M43 and wrap super fakes would already be perfect. But they aren't.

I agree,in fact over the last several days I have seen 3 or 4 viewing this thread who I suspect are involved in having these creations made.








Glenn

[kammo man]

You can buy vintage paint .......no need to have it made.

[B. N. Singer]

...In my view, it would be a mistake to publicly list the problem areas of these copies on an open forum...

Agreed; but be it a mistake or not, I will not do it.

However, aside from details being explained, I will continue in attempting to out these spurious examples to the best that I can.

B. N. Singer

[phild]

If it were just a case of reverse engineering, the M43 and wrap super fakes would already be perfect. But they aren't.

If they are now perfect we would NOT know as they are being judged as originals.

One aspect that is a little frightening is that we count on two things:
1. Top fakes will appear in some quantity and therefore offer a warning for a real hard look.....the SS Tux TKs are just one (of many) recent examples of this.

2. There will be some detectable difference (not via science, but look and feel generally) between any fake and the exact original that it is trying to mirror.

Both of those criteria are tougher for uniform and cloth headgear collectors than say badge collectors in that often the cloth items that are fake are one-offs or near that.....metal die made items have to be made in quantity (not so much cast made however) to break even on tooling costs.

Also it is tricky and really false to force EXACT comparisons of most cloth items to known originals even by the same make and year as there can be very slight differences between originals...sometimes more than slight differences.

I understand about not providing help to the fakers with insight into their mistakes, but I personally would never ever except a negative opinion on an item that I had and felt that I had vetted to my standard unless that opinion
included specific reasons for the doubt.....nor would I expect any other collector to except the same from me.

[Leroy]

It always seems to come back to the fundamental and long-standing disagreement over whether to disclose details, or not. Here's a quote from Dietrich Maerz in the new issue of International Medal Collector magazine (discussing the new generation of fake Juncker Knights Cross, where he shows and compares highly specific details):

"It has been and always will be my strong opinion that the
antiquated attitude of some "advanced" collectors of not
sharing their knowledge with the broader collector base is a
bad (not to mention elitist!) attitude. All collectors should have access
to the same correct information.

The fakers are not collectors. They are doing what they do for monetary
gain. Yes, they can buy books and haunt collector fora, but they can also
buy the genuine item, study it in detail, and then resell it. (The fake
discussed here is not based on published pictures and information; it is
based on a real Juncker Knights Cross.)"

I don't know the answer to this, and don't know that anybody does, but IMO it is a serious problem.

[OSS]

We can do better.

Despite the poll results, I just don't think it is that difficult to make a call - yet. Although the craft of the fakers is improving, shortcomings visible in photos are magnified, and additional errors identified, once the item is in hand.

In my view, it would be a mistake to publicly list the problem areas of these copies on an open forum. In the past couple of years we have seen vast improvement in the new 'products' over what has been shown in this thread. Why help the fakers perfect their craft? If it were just a case of reverse engineering, the M43 and wrap super fakes would already be perfect. But they aren't.

Any item is liable to be faked nowadays, not just at the high end. We just saw a thread posted in which a common black Heer NCO wrap was outed. But I do agree that unusual items deserve more scrutiny. Wraps for field marshals or tram conductors will raise a flag for most people but when one sees piles of HG wraps available at shows a little warning bell should go off: proceed with caution and if you're uncertain ask the advice of someone with proven expertise before buying.

[phild]

It always seems to come back to the fundamental and long-standing disagreement over whether to disclose details, or not. Here's a quote from Dietrich Maerz in the new issue of International Medal Collector magazine (discussing the new generation of fake Juncker Knights Cross, where he shows and compares highly specific details):

"It has been and always will be my strong opinion that the
antiquated attitude of some "advanced" collectors of not
sharing their knowledge with the broader collector base is a
bad (not to mention elitist!) attitude. All collectors should have access
to the same correct information.

The fakers are not collectors. They are doing what they do for monetary
gain. Yes, they can buy books and haunt collector fora, but they can also
buy the genuine item, study it in detail, and then resell it. (The fake
discussed here is not based on published pictures and information; it is
based on a real Juncker Knights Cross.)"

I don't know the answer to this, and don't know that anybody does, but IMO it is a serious problem.

There is no question that the approach of most badge/medal collectors is very different from that of many uniform collectors in regards to disclosing "problems". I think that a BIG OL HUGE reason for this difference is that many aspects of uniform analysis is much more subjective that award analysis......which actually is not that different from analysis of a minted coin with maybe the additional curve ball of 40 different dies and mints being involved using 5 different compositions of panchants....so I lot to learn for each type of badge.....but a difference can either be accounted for or it can not. Not so with uniforms....at least in every detail.

It all comes down to establishing a base line or control and then assuming that a fake can never meet that baseline.....pretty arrogant thinking if you ask me.

By the way the deal with the super Juncker fake RKs is pretty much like I was speaking of in my last post...that is a number of these showing up at the same time and differences being found due to suspicion that would probably have never been noticed if one of two of these had been slipped into the collecting community every year or two.

[John Hodgin]

I agree,in fact over the last several days I have seen 3 or 4 viewing this thread who I suspect are involved in having these creations made.
Glenn

Troubling, and a sound reason for omitting the details here, including photos of genuine maker marks as well as listing every incorrect detail noticed. Many continually get angry when those in the know, like Mr. Singer, hold these details back, but I applaud him and others for doing so! My past comments about "spoon feeding" are usually directed to these types.

[Mike Davis]

There is no question that the approach of most badge/medal collectors is very different from that of many uniform collectors in regards to disclosing "problems". I think that a BIG OL HUGE reason for this difference is that many aspects of uniform analysis is much more subjective that award analysis......which actually is not that different from analysis of a minted coin with maybe the additional curve ball of 40 different dies and mints being involved using 5 different compositions of panchants....so I lot to learn for each type of badge.....but a difference can either be accounted for or it can not. Not so with uniforms....at least in every detail.

Yes indeed. The sample pool for RKs, for instance, is very much larger than compared to say, HG wraps.

[Leroy]

Phil - We also see strange things like a totally unmarked set of Godet Oakleaves (never observed before until just a couple of years ago) and a Juncker Knights Cross originally marked (i.e. before assembly) with a '900' silver mark (just last year). I mention these because, just in these two cases, literally hundreds of these, just from these two companies, have been intently examined by experts for years and such things had never been seen. Hard to believe in absolutes under these circumstances. The "pool" on these is not bigger than the "pool" of wraps.

[Mike Davis]

It always seems to come back to the fundamental and long-standing disagreement over whether to disclose details, or not.

Yes, and you and Dietrich may very well be correct that full disclosure IS the best way to proceed. I know that people get irritated, and perhaps righty so, when the list of defects/errors is not produced upon request. Imagine the frustration of those that could respond but feel compelled to restrain themselves, for fear of damaging the hobby further.

[John Pic]

"Perfect" It does not matter if it is 100% perfect..if a collector started say in 1998 they encountered very well made fakes that only got better with time...some may have never handled an original ever but have handled several doctored tunics.

I use the Sieder sleeve eagle's as an example many collectors who began in the 90s were fooled by these eagles and swore by the tunics...Peter von Lukacs, Helmut Weitze, Kai Winkler, Norbert Graetz, Paul Jarvis all sold more than a few tunics with these eagles and no one questioned them until the forums opened up...only collectors who had been around in the 60s,70s and 80s knew something was wrong with the eagles and other insignias they were made just like originals and some of particularly excellent quality. The fakes just got better after they were outted..

The tunics these were on are still out there I never see any that were offered for sale and sold or didn't, posted up for opinion...have they been re-doctored into a better quality fake do the owners think they are real??