Theater Cast Made Senior Pilot Wing?

[vietvet7071]

Can someone verify if this wing is a theater cast made wing or not?

Thanks.

[vietvet7071]

Photo of back.

[mghcal]

I suppose I'll stick my neck out on this one lol. I don't recall seeing this particular pattern in theater made wings before. I do believe I have seen that type of catch tho. Is the catch crude as well? It looks like a box type hinge. I like the wing myself. Would be curious what others may say.

[Kropotkin]

The fixings look like those Amcraft used on their wings.

[pfrost]

I have a couple of my own rules for assessing the vintage of cast wings. I can't say that the are "right", but this is what I use for my own collecting purposes.

 

1) While about 99% of WWII wings were die struck, a mall percentage were in fact cast (Dieges and Clust for example (http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/298437-dieges-clust-military-airplane-pilot-badge/?hl=%2Bcast+%2Bwings). On the other hand, about 99% of the fake wings out there are cast from vintage wings.

2) Most of the other "good" cast wings seem to have been made in Mexico, some parts of the CBI, and POW camps. Most of those are rather well done pieces. See this thread for POW wings probably made from lead collected from KLIM cans. http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2135-wwii-pow-lead-wings/?hl=%2Bpow+%2Bwings

3) In general (outside of the POW wings), CBI or Mexican made wings were done using the lost wax technique. In that a wax blank wing (usually a unique design) was made, encased in plaster and then molten metal was pored into the mold.

4) I believe that most of the fakes use an existing wing to make the mold.

 

So, I usually believe that any crudely cast wing of an existing pattern (like the one in this thread) that looked like it was made in someone's garage using pot metal, some plaster of Paris and a blow torch was probably made just that way (as opposed to an artisan metal worker in a theater of operations).

 

This would not be something I would really want to put in my collection.