Is collecting more fun with fakes out there?

[BOB COLEMAN]

I believe the answer to your question is based on when you started collecting. Today, places like this forum are an excellent source of prepuchase information. In the days before the internet forums, knowledge was gained by word of mouth at the few militaria collector shows that existed. Sometimes this type of information was aacurate and sometimes not! Few accurate reference books were available. By the time you discovered your new purchase was also a new fake, it was too late. It was an expensive education and not something I would consider "fun."

[Wewelsburg]

I started collecting swedish nazi stuff about 2 years ago and thanks to this forum I had the courage to start with ww2 a couple of months ago.

We youngsters (if I can call me that ) really have it served on a plate in front of us, and still people doesnt take the time to study.

[bigmacglenn]

The Internet has definitely revolutionized the Militaria Hobby in ways never imagined, adding the ability to communicate & exchange information instantly, the multitude of purchase-options available for buyers, Information at your finger-tips, etc etc...It's always been a challenging hobby, but for me personally, the fakes have not had much -if any- impact on the Joy I derive from collecting & research...I certainly never thought about quitting...
I remember when I was a 13 year old kid going through the Patton Museum's Trash Dumpster looking for catalogs or anything useful, lol...Focus on the features of Originals, and the Fakes will be less of a headache, in my opinion...
cheers, Glenn

[BOB COLEMAN]

I started collecting swedish nazi stuff about 2 years ago and thanks to this forum I had the courage to start with ww2 a couple of months ago.

We youngsters (if I can call me that ) really have it served on a plate in front of us, and still people doesnt take the time to study.

Wise words my friend. As a moderator, it becomes tiring answering the same questions over and over. Too many new collectors are too lazy to use our search engine and want all knowledge spoon fed to them. In the long run, you only get out of collecting what you put in to it. The lack of study is why so much "fantasy" material appears on the market. If an item turns up that no one has seen in the past 70 years, the chances of it being period original is less than 1%.
My maternal grandparents are from Solvesborg on the Baltic Sea.

[Wewelsburg]

The search engine is really great. I search for about 2-3 hours every day to learn, mostly buckles.

But dont be mad if I ask a stupid question sometime

Sölvesborg is a nice little town, visit it if you can!

[BOB COLEMAN]

The search engine is really great. I search for about 2-3 hours every day to learn, mostly buckles.

But dont be mad if I ask a stupid question sometime

Sölvesborg is a nice little town, visit it if you can!

With nearly everything being faked today, NO ONE can know it all. We are fortunate to have many experienced and learned members on this forum No question is stupid and never be afraid to ask it. My first fake was bought at the age of 12. There was a junk shop owner in Chicago who I would buy things from. I told him I wanted a helmet, preferably a SS helmet. He sold me a M42 with a shrapnel hole in the neck guard and a dent on the visor where it exited. Attached to it was a very early poor quality Heer decal. Cost me $7.00. That was a lot of money for a kid in 1957. The disappointment was horrible when I found out he had tricked me. I wish I had it today. He got his upcomings as a few months later he was arrested and convicted for numerous bank robberies and spent 20 years in prison.

[wizardman]

Bob has it exactly right with his comments...pre internet was a nightmare...i actually stoped collecting for around 15 yrs because i was sick of being ripped off...my very first experience was at age 6, when my parents bought me a Lee Enfield. .the guy they got it from was at the time the biggest collector in Australia. ..he said i could take my pick of his over 100 Enfield rifles only for him to swap it when i received it..a complete put together worth nothing from any point of view. ..you just couldn't trust anyone. ..quick story about him,he was a prison guard, and he would get the inmates to make fake bomb tails and such so he could pawn them off to un suspecting people, and that was in the 70s

[reneblacky]

bottom line NO!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

With nearly everything being faked today, NO ONE can know it all. We are fortunate to have many experienced and learned members on this forum No question is stupid and never be afraid to ask it. My first fake was bought at the age of 12. There was a junk shop owner in Chicago who I would buy things from. I told him I wanted a helmet, preferably a SS helmet. He sold me a M42 with a shrapnel hole in the neck guard and a dent on the visor where it exited. Attached to it was a very early poor quality Heer decal. Cost me $7.00. That was a lot of money for a kid in 1957. The disappointment was horrible when I found out he had tricked me. I wish I had it today. He got his upcomings as a few months later he was arrested and convicted for numerous bank robberies and spent 20 years in prison.

I was sold a fake black SS uniform by confidence artists in 1968. All too droll. It was a Dr. Breuer special.
I have a photo of it. It had a real arm band, though.

- - ------- - -

Human nature never changes. Nostalgia is a comfortable trap, made worse by the decline of the endocrine system and collapse of connective tissue.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I was also sold a pile of fake SS helmets at the end of the 1970s which made me then ditch my whole collection, which I later regretted.
I moved from the US to the FRG and could not take the collection with me, but I still was the victim of fakers who would never survive in the scrutiny
of the present. Ergo, I only have one SS helmet, as they are a source of irritation.

Hence, there was no free lunch in the past, as much as legend and its reflection in the false sunsets of the present in the digital whoop-dee-doo suggest otherwise.
We are lucky that we have Bob Coleman and others to set us straight.
And my extremism in the defense of scholarship arises from my own painful experiences.