SS evening dress Broach

[Dr. Strangelove]

remove

You can remove Jenkins from that list, he knows they are fake. He thought they were bad at the Show.

[John Pic]

Yeah...but did he tell Kai that when he looked at them or just everyone else after?...thats usually what happens. Ive seen it, youve seen it... fear of hand biting in the food pit.

[tgn]

Yeah...but did he tell Kai that when he looked at them or just everyone else after?...thats usually what happens. Ive seen it, youve seen it... fear of hand biting in the food pit.

You are absolutely correct.

[SScollector]

What an amazing controversy. Maybe I can help. First, the dots are proper and should be on originals. I've examined several and have had two originals in my possession last year. Second, the area underneath the chin can be trimmed or untrimmed on originals. This is not a concern.
There are many die flaws that the casts show weakness. I will not share all of these at this time.
The originals, (like the cap skulls), were always die struck. Here is a front closeup comparison of this new fake and an original. Also, as stated, the markings are completely wrong on these fakes.

Anyway, this is no different than the new cap skull fake that comes out every year or two. It scares the S+++ out of everyone and then we learn how to spot them and they become old news. Do your homework and stay away from fakes.

Best, Chris

[Dr. Strangelove]

tough

Well, it was pretty hard at the Show to think they were outright bad. I had one in hand and man it's a dynamite copy. I thought about buying one and the only thing that stopped me was my gut instinct and I wondered why the cliff beneath the skull that has the horizontal sheer marks was missing. And then I found other cool stuff to buy and forgot about it.

It was hard to call it a fake at the Show when advanced Collector/Dealers who have been around longer than me were snapping them up. I agree with the Cap Skull analogy above.

It was only after I came Home and was able to look at Maestro's pics and compare them to the two originals that I own that the "New Horde" fell apart.


In the World of SS Collecting, if it's to good to be true and it's under Market Price...............

[Hohenstaufen]

" If Weitze, Burmeister, Hritz, Verbruggen, Jenkins, Stiles, etc.... all blessed these and they turn out to be fake, we have a serious problem in the hobby. "


I can tell you that two of the above names did not like them at all and maybe was just being polite when asked about their opinion. Like I said earlier, I think that you have a situation where they left it up to the buyer to make his own decision about the badges, or they truly didn't know, but was trying to save face(reputation as if they know everything) by acting like they did know and blessed them anyway. Who knows.

The point being, like Doc said, at first glance, they looked convincing (from the front) and I too was tempted to buy. Until I turned it over and noticed that the flaw was missing on the reverse side, which made me feel uneasy and did not do the deal with Kai. At the show I believe it was a situation where people got caught up with excitement and greed. Not a good combination.

[Niederlande]

What an amazing controversy. Maybe I can help. First, the dots are proper and should be on originals. I've examined several and have had two originals in my possession last year. Second, the area underneath the chin can be trimmed or untrimmed on originals. This is not a concern.
There are many die flaws that the casts show weakness. I will not share all of these at this time.
The originals, (like the cap skulls), were always die struck. Here is a front closeup comparison of this new fake and an original. Also, as stated, the markings are completely wrong on these fakes.

Anyway, this is no different than the new cap skull fake that comes out every year or two. It scares the S+++ out of everyone and then we learn how to spot them and they become old news. Do your homework and stay away from fakes.

Best, Chris

As always, great input Chris!

@Darius, did you get a refund from Kai?

[SScollector]

Here is a shot of the chin on the above original. As you can see, it does not have the horizontal ridge. Out of the originals that I have seen, about half of them have the ridge and half does not. It appears as though this was a hand tooling preference. Either way is proper.

Also, I don't mean to take this lightly. It is very serious and I hate to know that some people may have thrown away many thousands of dollars. Hopefully we can help other collectors in the future by
exposing these fakes.

Best, Chris

[SScollector]

picture

[militaria.no]

Thank you for a very interesting discussion guys. It reminds me to avoid being “business-ized” in this more and more advanced hobby

Thats what Grant says further up ... ''Kai had, allegedly, 100 of these "newly found" originals, but was trying to move only 5 or 6 at the SOS''

And it wouldn`t surprise me a bit if he can order 100 more from a source when they have sold out. And it wouldn`t surprise me a bit if there are other boxes around ehhh… I mean new hoards Like another member wrote: "It is too much money in this business" and heyyy for someone this is their living! We must remember this. We do the best in our businesses to create money flow so why shouldn`t everyone else (even dealers) do the same?

Poor WWII collectors in the modern world of lazer milling... In 2012 (when we have already visited Mars) I think collectors should be very careful when it comes to investing savings and hard earned money or old collectibles in “newly discovered hoards”. Like this discussion shows it might turn out to be a bad investment. 100% is 100%, 99% or less is something else...

I too was offered one of these from Kai at the show. He was wanting 8K cash or 10K in trade

Came to think about my wife when I read this... she is vacuum cleaning every Sunday...

It was hard to call it a fake at the Show when advanced Collector/Dealers who have been around longer than me were snapping them up.

I should change my motto to: Don't let greed or a new hoard control your rational mind. This is when you'll make a lot of bad decisions.



What John Pic says here is every collector’s nemesis. This should be printed on flyers given out before every show. AMEN! to this.:

This kind of "blessing" has always gone on...especially at shows...one quick look at something a "friend" or someone who you want to be on the good side of has and it becomes too easy to say "oh yeah that sure looks good to me" especially with something that really needs intense scrutiny in details as this. This problem has always existed . I hate to bring up the Panzer Tunic again but it was the same thing..a friend has it and he has a story to go with it so it must be good..a quick glance and a blessing from friends while others neutral to the owners scrutinized it a bit more.

This is a problem the Hobby has always had..we talk "look at the item not the story" but we really take too much into consideration who owns or is selling an item and what the story is. Look at S&L KCs how many years did it take before we really looked into these and determined what was pre and post war?

This goes back to the censorship thread..if more people had the courage to scrutinize items from even those they like and buy from when fakes emerge the problems might be solved....they have no customer if nobody puts up with it..but if a few tolerate it just to have an in road to rare and desirable things the problem will always exist.

[colt45s]

The officer bought the TUX, it was not issued nor the breast skull, only used about a year

[John T]

Here is a shot of the chin on the above original. As you can see, it does not have the horizontal ridge. Out of the originals that I have seen, about half of them have the ridge and half does not. It appears as though this was a hand tooling preference. Either way is proper.

Also, I don't mean to take this lightly. It is very serious and I hate to know that some people may have thrown away many thousands of dollars. Hopefully we can help other collectors in the future by
exposing these fakes.

Best, Chris

Chris..this one had the ridge but it was filed off during hand finishing, I believe the ridge is part of the planchet,

[SScollector]

Exactly

[Felix]

Exactly

My thoughts as well.
Still one could see the pressed edge from the die struck process. It is just "tooled away by hand" as mentioned.
However the smoothness from this new fake is like a girls smooth thigh.

I know which one I would kiss. I like a bit of rough edgeSS in some cases...

[Robert H]

Superb Photo Felix! Right edge and shape as we like it ... ;-)