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NOT A GOOD SIGN OF A MEYERS WING


donaldnol
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no way of telling if this army air crewmember meyers wings is a restrike or real postwar korean wing, poor stamped meyers ink new york and sterling lettering. worse of all some one ground down the needle pin to fit easer in the cam which is now ready to break off. the back pin has no rear stop when open it go's all the way back, i have showed this wing before on this link and they all said it's the real deal? i'm still not convents of it looks messy.

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1 hour ago, Airborne-Hunter said:

looks like a 1950s-1960s piece? Looks fine?

i'm going on the word of anaspides that told a discrete story on this, but sense they closed his page down i'm afraid that every body has there own opinion about meyer wings?

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Airborne-Hunter

If I may state, I think the issue here is the 180 degree opening on the pin as opposed to the desired 90 degree stop. If this is the case, WW2 should stop at 90. But this wing is post-WW2 as denoted by the alphanumeric code 9M. These codes started in the late 50s. Post war wings do not have the little hump on the back of the pin to stop it at the 90 degree spot. People better in the know than I can give a general date frame, but sometime after WW2, Meyer (the company - not an individual) started to restrike their wings. These restrikes have 180 degree openings. 

There are reproductions of Meyer wings as well, but the vast majority of non-ww2 Meyer wings fit this "restrike" category. They are not fakes. I wouldn't say they are reproductions. Restrikes may or may not be the correct term, but generally is the accepted/used word.


I hope this is helpful.

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16 minutes ago, Airborne-Hunter said:

If I may state, I think the issue here is the 180 degree opening on the pin as opposed to the desired 90 degree stop. If this is the case, WW2 should stop at 90. But this wing is post-WW2 as denoted by the alphanumeric code 9M. These codes started in the late 50s. Post war wings do not have the little hump on the back of the pin to stop it at the 90 degree spot. People better in the know than I can give a general date frame, but sometime after WW2, Meyer (the company - not an individual) started to restrike their wings. These restrikes have 180 degree openings. 

There are reproductions of Meyer wings as well, but the vast majority of non-ww2 Meyer wings fit this "restrike" category. They are not fakes. I wouldn't say they are reproductions. Restrikes may or may not be the correct term, but generally is the accepted/used word.


I hope this is helpful.

i will have to check my other 389 wings i know most of my meyers wings after the mid 50s to the 70s are 70 degree - 90 degree opening. thanks 

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There are a number of terms that should be clear.  Original wings made off the original dies and sold approximately in the era used. 

 

Then there were various waves of re-strikes that were produced.  Wings were made from the original dies some significant time AFTER the originals were used.  Intended to be sold into the collector market and not really for use by military personnel.  Originally, the re-strikes were made of the rarer versions of Meyer wings (balloon pilots series, airship series, TO wings etc)--typically pre-WWII ratings of USAAC wings.  Then there were additional waves of NS Meyer re-strikes that started showing up in the late 80's and 90's when wing collecting really took off.  These included the alphabet wings, gunner and bombardier wings, etc. In general, all the WWII vintage wings....

 

The main characteristic about the re-strike wings were that (for the most part) they had the floppy pin/hinge that opened up 180 degress.

 

Then there were the outright casting of wings.  Again, mostly these show up in the balloon, TO and airship series.  They used an extant wing and made a casting. Some of the better ones had correct pins salvaged from cheaper wing examples.

 

THEN, in the 2000's (I know I sound like grandpa Simpson) another wave of fakes started showing up.  In these cases. re-strikes (or casting) were introduced in which the NS Meyer hallmark was ground down and some other fake hallmark was added.  AGAIN, these were often seen on the alphabet wings and/or early pre-war vintage wings.

 

What you almost NEVER see are-strikes of the WWII vintage aircrew wing (they are super common and not worth faking) muh less than any of the post WWII Alpha/Numeric coded aircrew wings: either 9MM that was probably used from the very late 50's and into the 60, or the 22M wing which were probably used in the late 60's up to (more or less) late 70's.

 

So, this wing is one that is super common and would probably cost more to re-strike than to find an original version.  The 90 degree pin is always a good sign (and are almost universally found on vintage wings), but the pins broke and were frequently replaced and this could have been one of those examples. The NS hallmarks and font/size of the sterling is fine and exactly what you would expect..

 

Still, no matter what, its only worth about the value of the silver in the wing (about 10$ at most--I am guessing).  If I were collecting from this time period (late 50's-70's) USAF cold war/Vietnam war time period, I wouldn't have too much heart burn about having this in my collection.

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As has already been stated above, there are no issues with authenticity re these mid-50s-mid60s Meyer 9M wings. A nice set of wings!

 

What hasn't been mentioned is the OPs concerns over the "poor stamping" of the Meyer and 9M markings. Up front,  the markings (except for the poorly executed hand stamped "sterling" in this case) are not "stamped". The markings are raised, which means they are incised into the DIE, not stamped onto the badge. What you are seeing here is something commonly referred to as "ghosting". Basically, in this case, the planchet from which the base wing was struck moved between the initial strike and a subsequent strike for whatever reason (eg a stamping press rebound or operator error). You end up with a "double" makers mark, with one weaker than the other but all perfectly offset. Ghosting, although poor QC, is actually an excellent indicator that a badge has been die struck. Note in this case the raised alignment lines/stops adjacent to both the hinge and catch have also been ghosted as they are also features incised into the reverse die.

 

Ghosting can be found on the obverse or the reverse or both the obverse and reverse, depending upon what moved in relation to what (reverse die, planchet, obverse die).

 

Ghosting can be found on cast fakes as well of course, if the original badge that was cast had ghosting to begin with. Other indicators of the casting process (poor details) or incorrect hardware make these fairly easy to identify. 

 

Regards

Mike

 

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