Quote:
Originally posted by SteveB@Mar 5 2004, 09:13 PM
Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help with an ebay problem I have. I sold a Pacific Star recently on ebay recently, which the buyer claims is a copy. I bought it in good faith as an original, but will obviously refund my buyer and bow to his superior knowledge. I sell on ebay to finance my own medal collection, and I am very keen to maintain my 100% positive feedback.
Maybe we could start a thread to discuss how to tell post war copies of the campaign stars from the originals?
Cheers
Steve |
Copies of these Stars have existed for a number of years,initially it was only the Air Crew Europe that caused problems,but sadly as prices of genuine Articles increased so Copies of all of them began to appear.
Look for:~
a}"V I "in copies these are seperate in Originals these are joined @ the top."VI"
b}The Crown is lower in relief & has only 3 pearls as against 5{3 + 2 x 1/2 top & bottom of arch} on the originals down the central arch of the Crown
c}the Orb is Poorly struck
d}The copies are thinner & the colour is wrong{ie too "Yellowy" as opposed to the Pinky Bronze colour of Originals}
e}The suspension rings are of thinner wire{Large unsoldered rings were used on Officially issued late awards by the Royal Mint from the late 50s onwards as stocks of the original "soldered" small ring type were exhausted~This I have on direct authority from the Royal Mint as I enquired to them concerning this in the 1980s,there reply was published in Medal News some years later
f}Sad to say the genuine stars were not well finished,some copies may appear Too well finished
.No doubt as time has gone by the forgers & replica makers have got better @ their craft,so it is advisable to handle as many genuine stars as possible & also handle known reproductions & fakes,to compare them with,I hope this helps all the best,PS:also make sure you get the same star back! BH!