quote:
Originally posted by M. Bando:I believe that if Jean Pierre could do a 'hands-on' examination of this buckle, he would have no doubt that it is original.
unfortunately there is absolutely no need to have it in hands: It IS a fake which is currently made in Hungary. Not only I already know and handled that fake, but for the 5 Euro it costs I even bought one!
Fakers did a good job trying to duplicate an original but this is the only thing they did: try. You said to have expertise in patches of the 101st Airborne and that "when collectors send images of 101st patches to me, for Type identification when they are buying or considering buying one, I frequently have to tell them that the patch they are showing me is not of WW2 vintage 'in my opinion'" which is a very good attitude when in doubt and/or when difference is minor. But if someone send you images of a patch with a frog head instead of an eagle head, will you say the same? Furthermore, if you knew exactly where was made that patch with a frog head and which factory was making it, will you spend time trying to convince someone seeing an eagle that he/she is in fact looking at a frog and why this is a fact?
quote:
Originally posted by M. Bando:Now I want to know if the moderator of this forum acquired his opinions by examining items with US or German 'veteran provenance', etc, or just what authority or empirical evidence told him that a SS EM buckle of the type I posted is fake? I mean there must be some BASIS for this, such as the criteria I stated above, for instance, the fact that no such buckles were ever seen by collectors until ten years ago, when they started appearing with regularity, Or a statement that no SS EM buckles were ever marked on the side nearest the retaining catch, but rather only under the two-pronged belt attachment side, or a statement, I know where these are coming from and who is making them, or SOMETHING other than just an opinion, based on WHAT?
Based on what YOU do not know. You see an eagle and I see the frog I know. Am I going to explain everything again? No. Since you are the one needing to be concvinced, you can just type my name in Google and read everything I wrote since years on the subject then you will finally see the frog in your hands. But please do this on your spare time, not on mine.
quote:
If anyone held this buckle in their hand, looked at the quality of manufacture, the detail, the careful attachment of the belthook catch, every aspect of it is of quality equal to the ones I've acquired directly from vets who brought them back
Please quit trying to convince yourself since there is absolutely not a single point where you are right: You have a well known Hungarian FAKE made in 2004 and this is all you have!
quote:
OK guys I'm gonna stop debating this becaause it seems it could go-on endlessly. The obviously fake and poorly-made examples shown in the oft cited article only prove that some crappy fakes exist bearing the same numbers. They are so different in other reespects from the example I posted that all it proves is that some fakes with those numbers do exist. It does not prove that all buckles with those numbers are automatically also fake.
I wish all of you could do a hands-on examination of the buckle in question. I've never examined a better quality SS EM buckle and I've had plenty of them in my hands.
Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum. In the future, please be extremely careful with "SS" buckles in your hands...
Best Regards
