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When too much of a good thing...more bad Purple Heart engraving on eBay


Dave
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THANK YOU so very much for Posting this extremely important data !! I'm certain we are all collectively condemn anyone would engaged in this type of action, or actions. As these criminals get better at their tasks, & just as important, become better informed as to this subject matter, it becomes even more critical to seek these people out & treat them accountable for their criminal actions. Honestly, what ever became of 'public flogging', perhaps followed by a little 'ear cropping'. No, really, we spend great sums of money to facilitate our collections, & then we have maggots such as these who actively attempt to commit fraud & make our chosen hobby that much more difficult !! OK, I guess I'm done ranting. THANKS AGAIN for sharing this important information !!

 

Best, dpast32

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Taylor Stevenson

Dave,

 

Proxibid doesn't save purchase records that far back, but I'll see if I by chance have any other photos. I remember these came out of a lot of 5, maybe 6, medals, all engraved/named. At least one was the typical official/government-produced(?) stamped name that I see a lot. I'm headed to my hangar tonight, so I'll grab these to take more photos if you all would like.

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the glaring red flag on these that makes them 100% fraudulent? To my eye (layman I guess) the fonts look different. I obviously would like to avoid similar purchases in the future. Are the burrs refered to above the shiny bits on the edge? I don't recall any obvious burrs. What is the giveaway that the engraving hand is the same in all of these? Can't hurt to learn a little from this...

 

Also, I have no idea from where the ATTU reference came. I assume I may have messed up and clicked "sell similar" on one of my other auctions and forgot to edit the title fully. Lesson learned.

 

I hope to learn from this and continue to dispel any notion that I knew of these issues. I agree that it appears as if I was the dupee, which is a shame because, despite your assertion above, I'm typically pretty smart... I promise :)

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Taylor-

 

To be totally honest, had you offered these one at a time, you probably would have made a killing. In my book, there's nothing that's a red flag on each of these medals...except that they were listed at the same time and when you have multiple medals all engraved in the same format by the same hand...that has red flag written all over it. The chances that different medals to different recipients, all engraved by the same jeweler in the same format all remaining together for 70+ years is highly, highly unlikely, so when they are looked at as a whole, that's where the issue comes up.

 

I supposed there could have been a jeweler who engraved some medals for recipients during the war and they were never claimed...then sat in a drawer for years until they were finally sold...but that story would be super unlikely and far more unlikely than someone who was a skilled engraver who was churning out fake awards to deceive collectors. That's a far more likely possibility as it's happened again and again over the decades (since the 60s and 70s, even).

 

Thanks for adding the "rest of the story" to the thread!

Dave

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Oh, and Taylor, much to your credit and the appreciation of collectors, you took some great photos of the medals, to include angle shots so it's very clear how the engraving was done.

 

As I said in the first post, I didn't think you were intentionally out to swindle anyone, you just didn't know what you had...and it looks like my thought process was correct. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Clearly, the hand that engraved these examples, was a more skilled one. Out in the bush, I'd not have hesitated to buy one. These are in a style of engraving I've not encountered with the more recent fakes. I'm very curious now to see what other ones are out there, and from where they originated. Great thread.

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