WW2 Stars

[SteveB]

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

[Sgt Pilot Bernard Henson RAFVR]

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!

[Wise1]

SteveB

As Sgt Pilot Bernard Henson RAFVR says make sure you get the same one back and dont refund until it is returned. Its a common scan when trading items such as this for the the buyer to make these claims in order to get the real item and then send a fake back to you.

Trust me its been done and still is!

Regards

Lee

[Sgt Pilot Bernard Henson RAFVR]

Originally posted by Lee Wisener@May 2 2004, 08:18 PM
SteveB

As Sgt Pilot Bernard Henson RAFVR says make sure you get the same one back and dont refund until it is returned. Its a common scan when trading items such as this for the the buyer to make these claims in order to get the real item and then send a fake back to you.

Trust me its been done and still is!

Regards

Lee

Thanks for spelling it out I didnt like to be that blunt,but that is exactly what was meant "Caveat Emptor" ~ Sellers also!!! Its a Jungle Out There!

[DirtyDick]

Quite ironic that the price rises in the medal market are affecting the value of certain campaign stars, to such an extent that some are being forged, since the stars were designed to be as cheap as possible to produce.

I recall seeing an old b/w news clip of their being produced and the commentator proudly announced that each one cost no more than 3d (poss. 6d - long time ago) to produce from start to finish.

I suppose that accounts for the sharp unfinished edges that cut so many people's fingers to ribbons (pun intended) as they mounted them!

Richard