Is this medal naming correct? Post your engraving questions here!

[AustinO]

Appreciate you sharing your wealth of knowledge with us Dave. Ive learned so much from you on the forum and in your book! 

[Dave]

Here's another one-looker. This is exactly what I'd expect to see with a 100% right and correctly engraved Purple Heart. 

[Dave]

This isn't a bad one, but it's a replacement Purple Heart from the 50s or 60s. The soldier probably never got the medal to begin with, so he requested one later. Pretty common. Not sure why it jumped to the final price though. 

[Dave]

Again, a one-looker. Exactly what I'd expect to see in a Navy Purple Heart. 

[Dave]

Not really vintage, but a nice set of newly engraved official replacement medals for comparison purposes. 

 

 

[Dave]

Again, not WW2, but official government engraving on a new, replacement, award. 

[Dave]

I really like collecting images of awards with dated documents. This helps everyone in the community know what the government was engraving at an exact time period. Here's a Purple Heart dating from 1974. 

[Dave]

Now, an ARCOM dating from 1979. It shows the government was still using pantographs with a diamond drag tip at the end of the 70s for engraving. 

[Dave]

Here's a replacement Purple Heart from 1996. 

[Dave]

By 2001, it's clear they were no longer using a pantograph for engraving. 

[Dave]

I don't know what was happening with this group, but everything about it was wrong. The medals were modern, the engraving is horrible...just really a nonsense group. 

[Dave]

Oh boy...I don't even know where to go on this one. It has the documents, sure, but it looks like someone tried engraving it with a nail or something. Ooof! A waste of a good Purple Heart...

 

[Dave]

I don't remember the source of this image, but it's close to what Mac was selling on eBay. Again, not anything like real government engraving, ever. 

 

 

[Dave]

Another...not sure if the source but again...not even close to being real. 

[Dave]

This medal was engraved by the infamous "Chester". It was purchased from him by a forum member who later gave it to me as an example of Chester's work. I have better photos of it (because I still have it) but these aren't bad. 

[Dave]

It's always nice to see Purple Hearts in the hands of the family. I owned the posthumous Purple Heart to this man's brother, and the family still had his other brother's posthumous Purple Heart from the Tidal Wave Ploesti raid. Sadly, his posthumous DSC was long gone. This is a great example of a medal that's completely untouched and had been for decades before they pulled it out of the box for me. 

[Dave]

Someone at some point was churning these fakes out left and right as can be seen by earlier ones in this thread. There are a LOT of these out there, and they're all fake. 

[Dave]

Good golly...I had forgotten how many of these were out there! More bad engraving. 

[Dave]

These were some from Tom Lane's old website. In general, if you see engraving with serifs (e.g. "a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter in certain typefaces.") then chances are, it's going to be bad, at least if someone's claiming it's from WW2. Here are some examples. 

[Dave]

This was a strange lot. The Silver Star was odd and the Purple Heart was most definitely a recent replacement. The group was being sold (IIRC) by the recipient's daughter, so it was just rather strange. 

[Dave]

There was a seller who ended up with a whole batch of fake awards. Had he only sold them one at a time, people would probably have thought they were just nice, privately engraved awards. But since he didn't know better, he listed them all, which in turn made people start to look at them...and they were all done by the same hand. Coincidence that they'd all end up together? No chance. He did take them down after a discussion about them being fake, much to his credit. 

[KASTAUFFER]

These next shots I am posting are from Tom Lanes old website PURPLEHEARTS.NET. It does not exist anymore. I will also use Toms original comments.

 

December 2005: A Purple Heart grouping to a Francis L. Hutchinson. This lot came with what appeared to be an original Memorial Certificate and Presidential Accolade. The medal itself is privately engraved, however. The key to the private engraving is the two different sized fonts, as well as the fact that officially engraved posthumous Purple Hearts were never engraved with the middle initial taking up its own line.  The seller was a general militaria dealer, so he probably doesn't know what to look for in engraving styles.  This lot closed at $250.00

 

[KASTAUFFER]

 

 

November 2005: Here's an interesting lot named to a Leonard J. McGee, a Captain in the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, who was killed in action March 24, 1945.  While the paperwork, cap, and patch look genuine, the Purple Heart is obviously privately engraved. Officially engraved Purple Hearts as issued to a serviceman's next of kin were never engraved with date or theatre of operations, as this one is. This lot closed for $610.00.

[KASTAUFFER]

July 2005: Here's a Purple Heart that appeared for auction from a well known patch dealer. Philip M. Clow was a fighter pilot with the 51st Fighter Group, and the auction lot was sold with some original paperwork. Sadly, the medal itself is privately engraved. Since this is the first privately engraved medal that this particular seller has auctioned on eBay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he just doesn't recognize WWII engraving styles, This lot closed at $911.

[KASTAUFFER]

Here's a very famous fake medal group that originally surfaced in a well known medal dealer's catalog in the late 1980's. He received it on consignment and published it in his catalog.  The lot was immediately withdrawn when the seller was contacted by the Toms family, who still had possession of the original medals, and the medals were returned to the consignor. This lot resurfaced in January 2005, being sold on eBay by a seller from Germany. The lot closed at $2864.00.

 

** This is a Frank Paulus group. The dealer that got burned by this was Al Gleim.