A Basic Guide by Military-Memorabilia
It used to be, that when I first started collecting WWII memorabilia, that the one thing you could always be assured of, Nazi Tinnies were always original. While it might get difficult to tell original medals and daggers from their fakes as reproductions got better, tinnies were always original. When even cloth insignia was being faked, tinnies were always original.
Unfortunately, that is true no more. The era of fake tinnies has opened in Eastern Europe, and is just beginning to spread into the United States. I have just spent an hour, on another auction site, viewing dozens and dozens of fake tinnies. While many were Kries and Gau Party Day Rally Tinnies, I also observed faked common and mundane tinnies. It appears our faker is making reproductions of what ever tinnie he/they can get ahold of.
Common features of the fakes: They all appear bronzish or dark copperish in color, They all appear to be sand cast knockoffs of the originals, with the typical 'pebbled' appearance to the surface of the fake, and the inherant loss of detail inherit to this method of reproducing. The reverses are semi-solid, with very few obverse features being visible in reverse, and those that are are misshapen and faint, as opposed to the mirror reverses found on original stamped tinnies (or the solid, molded tinnies, which had no reverse image at all). You will never find a maker's mark on the reverse. All the fakes feature what appears to be a lead-soldered safety-type pin, even if that was not style pin used on the original tinnie (think cheap to assemble!). Oh yes, they all had the same price - $25.00 each.
Below is a side-by side comparison between a reproduction amd original tinnie. Note the manufacturing features for yourself, and be aware of what you are buying!
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