Some years ago I stumbled across a shop in Sheffield 'packed' with BeVo foreign volunteer arm shields,all of which to my even then cynical,embittered and twisted mind were fakes.There were the full range from France,Wallonie,assorted Cossack units (Don,Terek etc) Georgien,Bergkaukasien,Turkistan (various)....the full works,all cut from a roll with zig-zag scissors.At that time (about 1985-6) those of us who suffered from the addiction to pretty shields had already been pretty much hit with what was at that time (pre-good reference books & www) a convincing array of fakes and recently Dan,myself and others were trying to work out exactly when they started to appear and where from.My earliest recollection is sadly (for me) a 'Biz Allah Bilen' Turkistan oval (with crescents) which I bought around 1977-8.
Anyway I finally found myself with some spare time the other day,ditched my wife and adorable
daughters and shamelessly indulged myself in a re-visit to this shop.Now at the time of my first visit the owner when casually asked as to their authenticity was reluctant to be cornered either way (price was..surprise,surprise...midway...cheap for real,expensive for fake) and the conversation was curtailed quickly.This time however the owner 'Terry' was straight in with questions to me (presumably to see how much I knew) and when I had obviously passed his tests he couldn't have been more helpfull.The only shield he had left was the Wallonie on tan background (small A) but he did have a whole load of other fake BeVo eagles,skulls etc so I asked him about the origins of his shield etc and he said straight up that they were fakes which he got from the USA by the hundred,some insignia were better than others he said (correctly) and they were originally made (in the USA) from photocopies taken from Andrew Mollos volumes.Now it's some time since I saw one of these books but from memory they were reasonably accurate line drawings but to lift them from a page and manufacture them weren't they wrong scale (too small) ? Anywhich way he was openly slagging the new batch off saying that the first fakes from the US back in the 60's were much closer and not these 're-enactor quality' that you get today,and how good the 70's shields had been..it was frankly all I could do not to sob there and then.SO there you go Dan,ian b etc EARLY 70's from USA (possibly Texas) on a jackard loom with designs allegedly lifted from Mollos books.
One thing that made me grin was that while I was there a guy came in for a length of medal ribbon whick he cut off with,yes,you guessed it...zig-zag scissors.
Warm regards,
Ian Hulley
Anyway I finally found myself with some spare time the other day,ditched my wife and adorable
daughters and shamelessly indulged myself in a re-visit to this shop.Now at the time of my first visit the owner when casually asked as to their authenticity was reluctant to be cornered either way (price was..surprise,surprise...midway...cheap for real,expensive for fake) and the conversation was curtailed quickly.This time however the owner 'Terry' was straight in with questions to me (presumably to see how much I knew) and when I had obviously passed his tests he couldn't have been more helpfull.The only shield he had left was the Wallonie on tan background (small A) but he did have a whole load of other fake BeVo eagles,skulls etc so I asked him about the origins of his shield etc and he said straight up that they were fakes which he got from the USA by the hundred,some insignia were better than others he said (correctly) and they were originally made (in the USA) from photocopies taken from Andrew Mollos volumes.Now it's some time since I saw one of these books but from memory they were reasonably accurate line drawings but to lift them from a page and manufacture them weren't they wrong scale (too small) ? Anywhich way he was openly slagging the new batch off saying that the first fakes from the US back in the 60's were much closer and not these 're-enactor quality' that you get today,and how good the 70's shields had been..it was frankly all I could do not to sob there and then.SO there you go Dan,ian b etc EARLY 70's from USA (possibly Texas) on a jackard loom with designs allegedly lifted from Mollos books.One thing that made me grin was that while I was there a guy came in for a length of medal ribbon whick he cut off with,yes,you guessed it...zig-zag scissors.
Warm regards,
Ian Hulley
,but I feel we've only scratched the surface of this.Without wanting to appear too paranoid I'd really love to know where the sudden abundance of PRINTED shields appeared from.I remember way back when I bought my 'Georgien' shield in around '76 they were really rare (and worth 5x the amount they are now..Formanns had one for £85 back in '80) even up 'till I took my 10 year sabbatical from collecting I never saw another one 'in hand'.Now however they are absolutely everywhere on the net,with the vastly lower cost of setting up a screen/block printing system as compared to a jackard loom am I really surprised at the quantities ? OR are the vast numbers swamping the 'popular auction houses' all original and I simply missed the exposure of thousands of these ?
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