Heer Real Eastern Front Medal?

[jeffskea]

Hello,

Could anyone tell me if this looks genuine? Found it in Sicily, pretty sure the ribbon is not original but would like an opinion from someone with more experience in German awards. Thanks.

Jeff

[Gordon Williamson]

As far as can be told from these images, looks like an original late war piece in Zinc which has lost its original finish and with a replacement ribbon.

They do fake them, but originals are common enough, especially the Zinc pieces. Looks OK.

[kapten_windu]

it looks OK to me

[Brian Wolfe]

I'm not a expert but I've done some research into the German medal collecting world and I would agree with Gordon and Kapten.

Regards

Brian

[jeffskea]

Thank you all for the input, it was pointed out to me that there were some holes on the grenade and "M" that looked suspicious does it raise any concern from you?

Jeff

[Gordon Williamson]

Zinc corrodes easily, so they aren't necessarily a red flag. Pitting is not abnormal. Holes caused by air bubbles during the casting process are a bad sign, but these don't look to me too much like casting bubbles.What is the edge of the medal like ? Castings will normally exhibit a raised line around the edge where the two halves of the mould seperate.

To be honest its such a common, low value award that I haven't seen any significant efforts to produce a sophisticated high quality fake. They tend to be either very poor quality soft metal castings with weak detail which are easy to spot, or are made in better quality metals than the originals and are in near perfect condition. This example looks like the Zinc that mid-late war examples were made in and shows crisp detail.

Again, based on the images shown, I'd say it looks like an original Zinker.

[jeffskea]

I can't seem to get a clear picture of the edge but I can definately tell it was two pieces of metal placed together, however the edges don't appear too sharp.