M44 jacket in Russian cloth

[OSS]

Buying alone without the use of forums is the risky act. This one was smoked out instantly. Repros anyway today are of good quality. When repro firms bother to make m44s like this, sold as repros, in this brown cloth, they would satisfy the repro collecting market. Such repros held up on forums will be exposed as fake. It's in the purchases outside forums consultation, by the inexperienced and the inadvised, that the problem lies. This tunic as repro looks bloody good and should be a guide to how such model field blouses should be reproduced as repros for repro collectors. medals always need close inspection for validity, so too tunics. And there are collectors for both orig and repro. So let them both have access to quality.

Is there a "repro collecting market"? Are there "repro collectors"and if so who would these persons be; reenactors? film makers? costume partygoers? I think it more likely that these tunics are created to deceive unsuspecting novice collectors who are looking for a genuine historical relic (but then of course I am admittedly unfamiliar with, or even aware of the existance of, the "repro collecting market").