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Fake USMC Pilot's Posthumous KIA Purple Heart in a European Auction


Dave
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A fellow forum member brought this beauty to my attention. It's currently being offered by a European auction house, who I have e-mailed and informed them that the medal is a fake. If they take it down...up to them.

 

That said, it's worth posting here because it's a good educational piece. 

First, the actual posthumous Purple Heart to Harold W. Bauer is in my book on page 377. It's in the possession of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, along with his posthumous Medal of Honor. So, it's not going to be at an auction. More importantly, the actual medal looks NOTHING like this one at all.

 

This leads me to the second point. This medal is engraved in a Navy style...a style the Marines never used. Ever. Period. Didn't use it ever. 

 

So if this medal was in USMC engraving style, and actually looked okay, it could potentially be plausible that a second medal could be floating around out there; perhaps requested by the widow, parents, etc. 

 

But...this one is so far out of the ballpark that there's no question that it's bad.

 

This brings up an interesting point, however...the engraving is actually somewhat okay with regard to Navy engraving. It's not correct, but someone legitimately tried to make it look okay and it might fool some collectors if it were named to S1/c Smith. However, I'd encourage anyone who does think this looks okay to take a gander at the medals in my book and you'll see very quickly how this differs from normal Navy engraving and that it is, 100% fake.

 

I appreciate the forum member who brought this to my attention!

Dave

 

 

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Wow, the fakers are getting smart. They learned a lot over the years from this forum I guess. They even have a copy of your book Dave. 😕

 

Regards 

Herman 

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