What is this odd Juarez wing badge? WASP class badge reproduction

[stratasfan]

Anyone have any idea what this wing is? The wings themselves look like Juarez wings, but I've never seen a center like this.

 

[Allan H.]

Elizabeth-

 

That is a WASP Class wing. THese are HIGHLY faked. I'd suggest you check out Bob Schwartz's www.WW2Wings.com website. He has some posted. http://www.ww2wings....usaafwasp.shtml

 

 

Allan

[rathbonemuseum.com]

Those are copies by he who shall not be named. Meant to deceive. Supposed to be WASP hand-tooled class wings.

[5thwingmarty]

I don't know if the wing shown is a JoeW special, but that class' wings were made using Lampl/Juarez wings. I believe it was the only class that did and it was the last class before the lozenge/diamond center wings began being issued.

[stratasfan]

Thanks for the info! This is actually a wing on display at the National Air and Space Museum. I've never run across a Wasp class wing before. Also, I've only ever heard a few mentions of the infamous copies. Are they good enough that you can't tell very well?

[5thwingmarty]

Some of the fakes are better than others. Some of the fakes are made with real base wings that the fakers cut down and attach fake center devices to. Others are completely faked with cast copies of wings used for the bases, which I believe is what JoeW does.

 

I was looking at the WAP wings on the National Air and Space website and did not see the image you posted, but they do have a Class W-7 wing on their site. I believe the wing they display along with one of the class W-1 wings are fakes. The wings for W-1 were not made with Bell wings as the base, and there is a detail missing on the attached device of the W-7 wing.

 

WASP wings are a mine field with genuine examples costing thousands of dollars, and many fakes are hard to identify just from photos, especially when the sellers post soft focus pictures and don't include clear dimensions.

[B-17Guy]

Well said Marty.

There are far more fake and reproductions of WASP wings out there, then probably authentic ones were ever made.

Remember, as Marty said, authentic WASP Class wings go for THOUSANDS of dollars.

Additionally, the class wings themselves have varying degrees of rarity, depending on the class.

Think about how rare it is to find an authentic Josten WASP lozenge wing...the class wings are far, far more rare.

Lastly, there are multiple, upon multiple WASP threads in the USMF, as well as multiple publications and online data, so there is no excuse for a diligent collector to get taken, if research and learning are taken seriously.

Someone a lot smarter then all of us said a long time ago -If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is-.

 

John

[bschwartz]

Sorry for resurrecting an old post but I came across this photo today on Facebook of Mildred Axton and it shows what appears to be one of the Juarez class wings.  Thought it would be good for a reference.

 

[5thwingmarty]

That is awesome Bob.  She was in WASP class 43-W7 which was the one class known to have been given wings made from Lampl/Juarez wings.