Painted Wound Badge

[Mike K]

Hi,

I've just received a really ugly looking Wound Badge. It is painted black (very sloppy job imo), however there appears to be a worn fire-gilt finish underneath. In places, there also appears to be the remnants of a SILVER finish over the gilt and under the black!

I'm really leaning towards stripping the black finish off this badge - not to increase value but because I don't think it belongs. I have already tried acetone on a small test area and the black finish can indeed be removed quite easily.

Before I proceed with a full paint strip, I'd like to know if there is any precedent for an originally finished gold would badge to be converted to a black? I don't want to be inadvertently be destroying genuine history!

Regards

Mike

Here's a scan of the obverse. The yellow circles outline areas of fire-gilt finish. The grey circles highlight areas where a silver finish is poking through.

[Mike K]

Here's a shot of the lower side of the helmut. You can see mainly bare (darkened) tombak and fire-gilt with traces of silver finish and black paint on the gilt.