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    Doubtful, Questionable and Ambiguous HPR Awards


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    Gents,

    Thanks God, there are not too many known fakes from the HPR period, but still, there are some. There are some "fantasy" awards as well, which are usually created from different existing and real details from other orders or medals. Much more often one can meet artificially compose groups and ribbon bars, which may contain some tempting pieces as well, used as "bait".

    Let us start with some pieces from the higher "echelon". Here is the first one, which partially uses original details, but the star itself is a cast.

    image-0EB6_4CBFD88C.jpg

    VORSICHT, FÄLSCHUNG!

    ОСТОРОЖНО, ПОДДЕЛКА!

    BE CAREFUL! THIS IS A FAKE!

    ATTENTION, FAUX!

    ATTENTI, FALSO!

    Regards,

    cimbineus

    Edited by cimbineus
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    Gents,

    Perhaps, this is the most often faked HPR award. The basis is the latter version of the Service to the Country Medal, but with the '49 coat of arms.

    image-55AA_4CC13322.jpg

    VORSICHT, FÄLSCHUNG!

    ОСТОРОЖНО, ПОДДЕЛКА!

    BE CAREFUL! THIS IS A FAKE!

    ATTENTION, FAUX!

    ATTENTI, FALSO!

    Regards,

    cimbineus

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    cimbineus,

    Thanks for starting this thread. Lots of interesting information here! I was not aware of the cast stars on the Hungarian Flag Order. Are these sold separately or have the cases been faked as well? The paratrooper fake has been around for a while. The ribbon bars appear to be well made and if done in the correct order of precedence could be very hard to tell from the real thing. Luckily, the last one you posted would be easily spotted because of the sloppy glue job.

    Regards,

    Gordon

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    Not the Peoples Republic but the Tildy era - I know of only a handful of originals. This is supposed to be a signals/radiomans wings

    Hunyadi, many thanks for posting these pictures. Thanks God I have no fake ones of this series, but you are 100% right. The "Budapest faker gang" a decade ago was busy with counterfeiting all the six pieces of this rare than rarity series. Gents, if you meet one of these six badges, please, do not believe your fortune, those will definitely be fake ones. Hunyadi, please, advise me, where shall I put some pictures of real ones? I think not in this topic, because that would cause confusion, I guess. Thanks in advance.

    Regards,

    cimbineus

    (P.S.: I beg for your understanding, but I warn you all in advance, that I will not post the pictures of the backs. This is part of my fight against fakers, because they basically have never held an original piece in their hands. They do their criminal activities using photographs.)

    Edited by cimbineus
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    .

    Since we have already touched upon an earlier period of the history of Hungary, let me put here another favorite piece of fakers, the "Minesweeper" badge. Here is one widely spread counterfeit version of the badge:

    image-8176_4CC31F30.jpg

    VORSICHT, FÄLSCHUNG!

    ОСТОРОЖНО, ПОДДЕЛКА!

    BE CAREFUL! THIS IS A FAKE!

    ATTENTION, FAUX!

    ATTENTI, FALSO!

    Edited by cimbineus
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    Uniforms are also subject to modification like anything else. What I originally thought to be a "pigeongray" uniform of an upper raking offcier, actually turned out to be a very very worn out penal uniform that had been modified.

    Of the HUPR the collar tabs and boards are in high demand. Correct shoulder boards are difficult to manufacture as the material and construction is different than the Soviet counterpart of 5 sided boards, though the collar tabs are easily manufactured - but its hard to make them "just right".

    I dont think there was a proper enough attempt to make this tunic into the ultra rare pigeongray uniform, (as most collectors didnt even know they existed until recently) but it was manufactured to make it more "marketable" -

    the collar tabs look OK at 10' from a photo on Ebay - but in the hand the color, manufacture and size are all wrong.

    On this photo you can see the felt is "new" and does not compare correctly to the period green felt of a proper collar tab (above), when you handle the fake tab, the edges are rounded and the material is very flimsy cardboard and not the proper stiff material. Thisrdly the signal devices look to be post 1956 as well.

    post-1879-012127400 1288032374_thumb.jpg

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    underside of the tab - notice the thin, modern thread used to attach the tab - remnants of the original thread used to attach the original tab are still present - there was also a really poor attempt at repairing the wire used to close the collar neatly with a piece of heavy wire -

    post-1879-018528500 1288032672_thumb.jpg

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