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Bailey Banks & Biddle of Philadelphia, PA: examples and patterns


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  • 2 weeks later...

As the wing has now made its way back to ebay with many much clearer photos, I wonder what everyone's thoughts are now?

 

 

I don't have an example of one of these BB&B wings to compare to, but it does look very much like the slick-back non-hallmarked "Noble" wing I showed in the Noble thread.  It appears to have the same vaulting as the Noble wings, which the BB&B wing on Bob's site does not, and the BB&B wing I saw at the SOS a couple years ago was also completely flat. The font for the BB&B on Bob's wing is also different than the BB&B font used on the ebay wing.   At this point I am leaning towards this being a real wing (not a cast copy) that has been "enhanced" at some point.

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It is always hard to know for sure, but I do hate it when someone just opines... "It's bad!  Trust me, I know stuff!"

 

So what don't I like about it:

The SILVER mark.  It is bogus, I challenge you to find another BB&B marked piece of jewelry that has SILVER (rather than sterling).

The BB&B hallmark doesn't look right, with the wrong font and style.  Again, there are enough vintage BB&B marks out there that finding what a "good one" looks like isn't that hard.

The patina is a classic "chemically derived/patina from a can".  Again, normal patina doesn't develop in that blotchy multi-hued tones.  I've handled plenty of fake wings to have a pretty good idea of what is what.

The pin and catch aren't right.  Like a NS Meyer fake, the flopping over/uncammed pin is suspect.

 

The details on the wing (including the shield) look awfully like a casting.

 

Compare that wing with the one on Bob's site.  Granted Bob is being humble, but I would nave NO quibble about his wing being a vintage BB&B made product.  Side by side, those two wings look nothing alike.  Bob's wing looks what my experience tells me a BB&B pilot wing would look like.  This one, looks EXACTLY like what I would expect a fake wing to look like.

 

So, just studying the wing, independent of any "story" from who or what sold it on ebay, I would not want this sucker in my collection.


I frequently get worried when a lot of the bad parts of the wing (and there are lots of bad parts) get explained away by independent factors that have almost nothing to do with the physical characteristics of the wing.  That is when the old saw about  buying the item not the story starts to come into play.  I think that (and I said it initially) there are some great parts of the grouping. Some great medals, paperwork, photos, etc. BUT there are also some questionable things, like the Tiffany marked squadron badge and this BB&B wing.  Specifically, It may have been a good squadron badge at some point, but I don't believe the Tiffany hallmark is kosher.  The other part of the squadron badge lot appeared to have been a cast brass piece from a wooden plaque. You also have a bunch of non-related "stuff" put into the groupings.  A WWII//KW CBI, some run of the mill campaign medals, some bits and pieces of "stuff", that almost seem extraneously added--all that raises some concerns.  Why would I accept that the BB&B wing is kosher but not worry about the CBI? The nice parts of the group in no way "support" the vintage of the others.  Its not like there is any real provenance or proof (like a photo of him wearing the wing).

 

So my sense still remains that some items were either enhanced or added to this grouping.  I doubt that without that horrible BB&B hallmark, no one would be dropping crazy money on a "SILVER" marked pilot wing with a fake can patina absent a bunch of photos and paperwork that are clearly great.

 

My 2 cents

 

 

 

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I'm not a fan of them and agree for the same reasons Patrick has stated.  Additionally, there is some sort of repair/ alteration just below the hallmark.  It looks like something was filled in or sanded smooth ( in my opinion)  and could explain the applied patina.

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On 8/19/2020 at 1:22 PM, pfrost said:

 The "SILVER" mark is wrong.  As a well established jewelry company, they wouldn't have used SILVER but instead they would have used the appropriate STERLING mark. 

 

The SILVER mark.  It is bogus, I challenge you to find another BB&B marked piece of jewelry that has SILVER (rather than sterling).

 

I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that if you were to search for BB&B made items (not just wings), you would be very hard put to find even one that was marked SILVER instead of STERLING.

 

Patrick

 

I'll take that bet on the condition that should you lose you make a donation of $10 or more to the U.S. Militaria Forum for 2020

 

Note that if a member makes a yearly donation. . . a Ribbon Bar for every year they made a donation will be displayed at the bottom of any thread they post to the Forum. I've missed a couple of years in the past but just sent in my donation for 2020.

 

Cliff    🙂

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I don't mind being wrong and am always looking forward to being corrected.  Goodness knows I spend a fair amount of time living the good life of ignorance and poorly considered opinions, that I welcome some education and clarification.

 

That being said, I still don't like that wing.  The fact that it sold for $1000+ in the first auction and then for ~450$ in the second a week or so later, makes me wonder if my opinion wasn't shared by others.  I cannot recall if the second auction even attributed it to the pilot from the original auction? If it was such a rare wing, why break it up from the original grouping?  There is all sorts of hinky stuff going on, as far as I can see.  If other things were less wonky, I could live with the silver mark, as who really knows what they were marking their insignia with anyway. 


But it is all moot--I didn't bid.  I am not the wing police and if the person who did get them are happy, then I tip my hat to you.  No judging,  I am just using my time to vent my opinions on the forum.  All you all are probably better off not paying attention to me anyway!  Covid and isolation seems to have turned me into an old man, standing on his patio yelling at the kids "Hey you all, get off my lawn!".  LOL.

 

P

 

PS another thing. Years ago when I first started collecting a scrap silver dealer gave me some advice. They just sold silver and silver plate and said that lots of "silver" stuff was fake marked during the late 70's and early 80's when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market.  The dealer told me that was one of the things that they looked for when buying scrap silver, as lots of non-sterling and silver plate was marked to increase its value.  Not that this is the case with this wing, but that always stuck in the back of my mind. This dealer also told me of having bought pounds!! of silver wings as scrap silver during this time period.  I ended up buying about 20 scrap TWA pilot wings from them.  Some were marked VHB, some just sterling and some Sterling by Blankinton.

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On 8/19/2020, pfrost said:

 

The "SILVER" mark is wrong.  As a well established jewelry company, they wouldn't have used SILVER but instead

they would have used the appropriate STERLING mark. 

 

The SILVER mark.  It is bogus, I challenge you to find another BB&B marked piece of jewelry that has SILVER

(rather than sterling).

 

I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that if you were to search for BB&B made items (not just wings), you

would be very hard put to find even one that was marked SILVER instead of STERLING.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________


On 8/19/2020, CliffP said:

 

Patrick

 

I'll take that bet on the condition that should you lose you make a donation of $10 or more to the U.S. Militaria Forum

for 2020. 

 

Note that if a member makes a yearly donation. . . a Ribbon Bar for every year they made a donation will be displayed at

the bottom of any thread they post to the Forum. I've missed a couple of years in the past but just sent in my donation

for 2020.

 

Cliff   ;)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

On 8/19/2020, pfrost said:

 

I don't mind being wrong and am always looking forward to being corrected.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Patrick,

 

Bailey, Banks & Biddle did stamp the back of some early wing badges "SILVER" rather than STERLING

 

The proof?  Go to Bob Schwartz's Aviation Wings and Badges of the World Wars website.  Next go to the World War 2 Wings section for U.S. Army Air Force.  If you swing over to the Airship Pilot section you will find a BB&B Airship pilot wing badge that is back marked SILVER rather than STERLING. . . and I can attest to its authenticity.  The pilot who wore it was a graduate of the Army's B & A/S school in 1922, and I purchased the badge directly from an immediate member of his family in 1983.

 

Thanks for being such a good sport. . . and we'll leave the discussion about the fixed-wing pilot badge for another day.

 

Cliff   ;)

 

 

1 bbb airship1 frtlg.jpg

2 bbb airship1 bcklg.jpg

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"I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that if you were to search for BB&B made items (not just wings), you would be very hard put to find even one that was marked SILVER instead of STERLING." 

 

Cliff, I stand by this statement (with some caveats now to save face).  I did a search for BB&B stuff and I was very hard pressed to find anything BB&B marked that used "SILVER" and not sterling.  I suspect I was a bit too pedantic is saying that it never happened.  We all know (especially me) that the statement "it was never done like that" and "here are some clear exceptions to that rule, dummy" are well acquainted with each other  -- one often trumping the other in well crafted rebuttals that leaves one (i.e. me) stuttering and muttering and seeking solace in a hole!

 

BUT...  While I will be happy to accept that the airship wing is a good vintage piece, that someone mistakenly and evilly marked SILVER to ruin my well crafted arguments, I remain less enamored with the pilot badge.  That was my point, that other than the BB&B hallmark (which doesn't look to be the right font) and the SILVER mark, very little about this pilot wing matches the airship wing. The pin, the hinge, the patina and the strike.  But as they say, opinions are like anal orifices.  Everyone has one... and nothing makes mine any better.

 

In fact, the more I think about it, there are MANY examples of items marked COIN SILVER (and not STERLING) that are clearly vintage.  According to JoeW, the coin silver marked Walter Lampl/Juarez wings were made when silver coins were melted down and used instead of sterling silver which was difficult to get early in the war.  Also according to my other sources, marking things STERLING that weren't STERLING was where one ran afoul of the law (a good example of this was the AECo problem with non-sterling wings being hallmarked STERLING).  As I understand it, not using STERLING or other proof marks on something that wasn't STERLING was perfectly fine (like using coin silver or maybe just something like German silver).  Even not marking something STERLING that WAS 92.5 silver was ok and didn't break the law. So, apparently, you can find non-STERLING marked wings that are actually STERLING.  That being said, there are many examples of fake badges (especially many of the English made knock off badges) that use "SILVER" instead of the appropriate STERLING mark.  You do see SILVER used on CBI made badges, as those areas seemed to be less controlled by the assay offices.

 

So, I guess my thing is that if other things were "more right" about this BB&B pilot wing, I could easily live with the SILVER mark. 

Finally, I will say that I am wrong and I owe you some donuts.  But frankly, Cliff, with all you have done for the hobby, we (I) probably owe you a lot more than donuts! 

 

P

 

 

 

 

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On 9/9/2020 at 10:41 AM, pfrost said:

I don't mind being wrong and am always looking forward to being corrected.  Goodness knows I spend a fair amount of time living the good life of ignorance and poorly considered opinions, that I welcome some education and clarification.

 

That being said, I still don't like that wing.  The fact that it sold for $1000+ in the first auction and then for ~450$ in the second a week or so later, makes me wonder if my opinion wasn't shared by others.  I cannot recall if the second auction even attributed it to the pilot from the original auction? If it was such a rare wing, why break it up from the original grouping?  There is all sorts of hinky stuff going on, as far as I can see.  If other things were less wonky, I could live with the silver mark, as who really knows what they were marking their insignia with anyway. 


But it is all moot--I didn't bid.  I am not the wing police and if the person who did get them are happy, then I tip my hat to you.  No judging,  I am just using my time to vent my opinions on the forum.  All you all are probably better off not paying attention to me anyway!  Covid and isolation seems to have turned me into an old man, standing on his patio yelling at the kids "Hey you all, get off my lawn!".  LOL.

 

P

 

PS another thing. Years ago when I first started collecting a scrap silver dealer gave me some advice. They just sold silver and silver plate and said that lots of "silver" stuff was fake marked during the late 70's and early 80's when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market.  The dealer told me that was one of the things that they looked for when buying scrap silver, as lots of non-sterling and silver plate was marked to increase its value.  Not that this is the case with this wing, but that always stuck in the back of my mind. This dealer also told me of having bought pounds!! of silver wings as scrap silver during this time period.  I ended up buying about 20 scrap TWA pilot wings from them.  Some were marked VHB, some just sterling and some Sterling by Blankinton.

 

Keep in mind there were other items in the first auction other than the wing that influenced the $1000 price tag . It wasnt " all about the wing".

 

The value of the rest of the items is actually more than the wing. 

 

Kurt

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IIRC, the first auction was selling a handful of named and unnamed and rather common medals and insignia, with the nicest pieces being the sweetheart bracelet, the Mexican Boarder War campaign medal and the WWI victory medal (three campaign bars) with some state service medals and the WWII vintage set of dog tags.  The CIB, and a few other dribs and drabs could have been added. 

 

I have no idea about the value of medals, but I assume that with the other named medals (like the purple heart) keeping the earlier stuff together would make sense.

 

So maybe subtracting the wing, that maybe makes about 500-600$ in value for the other items.

 

On the other hand, I have watched other early 1920's attributed wings sell in the 1000's of dollars.  Especially when the pilot had such an exciting life.  I have also seen multiple examples of unattributed "20's-30's" vintage wings like those made by Nobel or Bond easily sell in the 300-1000$ rang (and those are MUCH less rare than a BB&B pilot wing).  If real, an attributed BB&B 1920-30's marked wing is probably as near as a one of a kind badge as you can find.

 

Finally, what ever happened with the first lot and the second lot, the dealer selling the wing states:
"This is rare BB&B Pilot wings. 3" in size, die cast, outstanding detail, BB&B stamped on back, SILVER stamp to the right of the wing. Pin opens fully, these are pre-WWII wings, almost never encountered and are guaranteed original".  But never mentions that the have supposed provenance to a two war aviator (and one wounded in action no less). Also, maybe the die cast was meant to mean die struck.  But I suspect that these are castings.  All of this raises flags with me.

We are all probably tired of hearing my opinion on these.  I am not the wing collecting police and my thoughts are not especially relevant. BUT, I suspect that there were enough concerns about this wing that kept many of the deep pocket collectors away from bidding. 

 

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The Mexican border medal was numbered and traced to him, The #2 bidder of the lot actually owned the other traceable medal issued to him ( the NY CSC Medal)  plus the WWI Purple Heart I posted earlier in this thread. The WWI Victory Medal also definitely his and the city/state medal may have been named to him too.  In the world of medals a group like this is gold.  The Purple Heart by itself in this case is at least a $1000 medal if not more. Keeping the whole group together would have made it even more valuable.

 

The ID bracelet to him is very collectible being named to a AS Pilot.  The WWII dogtags are also important in attributing the items together.

 

If I owned the Purple Heart and NY CSC medal I would have happily paid a minimum of $700 and probably more (not including the wing ) for the rest of that group. 

 

Kurt

 

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I think we agree, that there were many great items in that group.  I have no quibble with any of that what so ever.  My only point is that I think the BB&B wings aren't any good.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

If your feeling like you missed out on the "HOLY GRAIL" BB&B wings the previous times they were up for sale, you've got yourself another opportunity.

 

 

The last winner must have had second thoughts...

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OR...the winning bidder was a shill...they've made 26% of their last 30 days worth of bids (40 of 154...that's a lot) with the same seller as the wings, and only made a single bid on the wings, when the bidding was at $65, two days before closing. 

 

Not saying that something like that happened, but lots of arrows pointing that way. The seller was probably hoping for more from the wings and they just weren't getting there...can't blame him for wanting to protect his investment, though it's better to make shill bidding less obvious IMHO...

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Every time this wing comes up for auction it seems to bring less than the previous time.  Their appeal seem to be getting more selective... extra credit if you recognize where that quote comes from.

 

 

Screenshot.jpg

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This is an old thread.  It was an auction for a gold plated BB&B wing.  Sold for around $800 back in 2011.  The photos I could grab weren't that great, but here is the original thread.

 

This is what I would expect a BB&B hallmarked wing to look like.  Marty recently made a very strong argument that F. Noble made some of the Cal-Aero CC Mosely engraved wings, here is one that could shed more light on the question.  It isn't engraved, but compares well to the ones that are. In fact, this gold filled wing from 2011 is very close to the pilot wing that Bob posts on his site (http://www.ww2wings.com/wings/usaaf/pilot/bbbaafpilot.shtml) and shares some similarities to the airship wing from Cliff's collection (http://www.ww2wings.com/wings/usaaf/airshipballoon/presleybbbairship1.shtml)

 

Again, some things to look at compared to the other wing, the pin is the cammed style, a drop in catch, the hallmark uses a smaller font (similar to what is seen on the BB&B marked jump wings), the detail on the shield is much cleaner and it is marked GF (rather than sterling or silver).  Again the photos from the original post aren't great, but I think they are close enough.  This also raises some interesting thoughts about the "dating" of these wing badges.  Assuming (I know, never assume nothing) that this wing is a badge for a civilian contract instructor (say out of one of CC Mosely's schools), then that would probably date it to around 1941-1942/3 or so.  Just based on the fact those are the dates most frequently seen on CC Mosely engraved presentation wings.  Also the recent discovery of early WWII vintage Noble catalogs, suggest that some of our ideas of certain wings being "early 20's-30's) may not be so accurate.  Not that it diminishes the beauty and rarity of these wings.

 

We know that BB&B was operating in WWII, and here we have a BB&B hallmarked wing that compares very well to some of the other Mosely engraved and dated wings.  Perhaps it was BB&B that supplied him with a batch of gold plated wings for engraving?  A special order placed in 1941?  I wonder if the original records still exist?

 

 

 

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  • 6 months later...
rathbonemuseum.com

As part of a photo album group, this cool card shows the various BB&B sweetheart items available. For your reference files.

 

 

5775E41F-7942-4798-BEFD-F450FA8F9334_1_105_c.jpeg

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