General Putnams 1st Annual Repro Branding Festival

[GeneralPutnam]

Welcome to the first annual Gen. Putnam's reproduction branding Festival.
Over the past few years I've had made some bad calls or have come across items in my collection which are reproductions.
Over a year ago I wrote a little blurb about reproductions being sold as the real thing and how that messes with collectors and blah blah blah.
I truly enjoy being a member of the site as all you gentlemen have sort some of these items out in a supportive fashion and as a result my ability to interact with you guys has helped me become a more confident collector and the site is a great tool in my toolbox.
That being said after a while I've accepted some of the judgment calls on some of these items and other items and have come to Jesus and I finally have decided what I'm going to do with all my reproduction badges and metals
I try to be a upstanding member of this forum and in the rest of the collector community. There are always ripoff artists and people in the hobby that are crooked is about snakes. Many times some of these transgressions are the sale of reproduction items which the person knows his reproduction and damages the buyer and also the collector community as a whole.
Normally I have a custom of throwing fake badges into the middle of the lake near my house maybe 100 years somebody you'll be scuba diving in there and find something interesting.
I have decided that these reproduction badges no matter what the quality should be put into reference so that I don't make any further mistakes with these particular badges and I also help others.
One of the largest problems I've seen is when some of these better fakes unfortunately make it through to three or four different buyers and sellers before they are shown to be dubious.
As a result I do not plan to sell these badges as reproductions into the marketplace I've also made that clear for people like my family who encounter them perhaps after I die in about 90 years.
Some of these are pretty good fakes some of them are pretty bad at the end of the day I decided to get some use out of my US Army World War I metal stamping kit what I've done is gone through to each one these badges and I have marked on the back of them with the metal stamp REP. It took me a while to decide to do this and it was a decision I really didn't take lightly but once I had people in the collector community inquiring about some of these dubious badges I realize that hey this is probably going to end up badly for someone down the line. And of course has my property I can do with it as a please.
We all know that once it leaves our hands and it gets into the wild there is no telling where it's can end up or who is going to get screwed. Hopefully this helps ensure that these badges forevermore can be readily identified as reproductions.
Thank you for listening to my rant ---General Putnam
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[Combat Boots]

I applaud your efforts to keep these bogus badges out of unknowing collectors hands! Thanks for taking the high road! Bob

[MAP]

Love the idea and have always planned on doing something similar with mine but with an engraving tool. (BTW...I have the exact same fake U Boat clasp..LoL).

After being burned I didn't know what to do with my dirty dozen. I never entertained selling them as repro's because as you note, after a few hands someone will sell them as originals. So instead of throwing them away or chopping them to pieces, I decided to display some of them on my tunics. (I prefer to keep my originals together and behind glass).

Now...I just have to find my engraving tool. It is somewhere in my tool boxes.

[GeneralPutnam]

that darn uboat clasp! weight measurements, ect , its a very good repro especially for non kriegsmarine collectors to get snagged on. I got it in a trade, dealer took his own life a year after I found out it was fake, so no trade ect to make it write.
and he knew dman well what he was doing when he put it in the trade group.

That's also when I learned that when a dealer is at a show of any type who is drinking wild turkey straight from a 1.75 liter jug like it was a bottle of beer.
its probably best to find another dealer.