Fake or genuine badges?

[Duncan]

I was tempted to get these but thinking they're probably modern copies. I don't really have the skill to tell fakes from genuine unless it's really obvious. Can someone tell me their opinion on whether they're genuine or not?

Many thanks, Duncan. 

[elbavaro]

I would agree: all modern fakes

[Duncan]

45 minutes ago, elbavaro said:

I would agree: all modern fakes

Thanks for that, that's what I thought too.

[BlackcowboyBS]

You should first learn the difference between casts and embossing, very few medals were casted, so a cast is in 99.5 % a modern copy. Take this as a thumb of rule and you can save a lot of money.

In the next step you should learn to recognize a galvano and then you will even be better to tell the difference between originals and modern copies. 

Andreas from medalnet can be the start in learning this:

Casts

Galvanos

The second post is in German but you might translate it with google translater to get the basic stuff out of it.

[bolewts58]

These are indeed terrible fakes. But, there are also high quality die struck fakes of these three awards.

The Silesian Eagle is a common cast fake identified by those strange elongated box rivets.

Likewise, the Brigade Grodno badge and Loewenfeld Cross have been faked in great numbers and even in very believable high quality over the last 10 years or so.

It really is about educating yourself, rather than merely asking for people's opinions. The fakers of even the high-end die struck copies have made several easy to spot mistakes in creating their dies, if you know what to look for. If you want to collect Freikorps awards and badges, you should get yourself some good reference books. There are certainly some good ones around these days.

This is one of the best and widely available.

Edited February 21, 2021 by bolewts58

[Duncan]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I love these Freikorp awards but not skilled enough to tell the fakes from the real thing. I'll take your advice and read up on it.

Regards 

Duncan. 

[bolewts58]

These 3 Freikorps awards are not difficult to find. There are several available on various dealer sites. A Silesian Eagle I cl. such as this type would be around 125 EUR, a Brigade Grodno Badge about 500 EUR and a von Loewenfeld Cross I cl. about 300 EUR. if you're serious about wanting these, I can help make suggestions for you.

[Duncan]

On 23/02/2021 at 09:22, bolewts58 said:

These 3 Freikorps awards are not difficult to find. There are several available on various dealer sites. A Silesian Eagle I cl. such as this type would be around 125 EUR, a Brigade Grodno Badge about 500 EUR and a von Loewenfeld Cross I cl. about 300 EUR. if you're serious about wanting these, I can help make suggestions for you.

Thanks yes, I'd particularly like the Silesian Eagle. I was also after the Belgian Yser Cross (not the medal version, I have one of those) - sorry, slightly off topic there.