I ended up passing on the poster and, in a manner similar to what Glenn suggested, put the money toward a pair of mint SS-Obersturmführer collar tabs that I've posted elsewhere on this forum. Overall, I'm quite pleased with my decision (the tabs are beautiful). The poster may very well have been authentic (I performed some further comparisons that I didn't mention in this thread), but since this poster is fairly common, I'll pick one up at a later date.
There ya go...
I always thought this guy looks like a young Paul Newman...
Hummel
Hello there,
I am a poster collector and have been for 25 years. That Waffen poster was not printed on an ink jet (based on that close-up pattern) but rather on a mechanical off-set printer. That's the even pattern of 'bubbles' you see which look the same on nearly all off-set prints. The Germans had off-set printers before the war so to me that would not be a questionable thing to see a German war poster with mechanical off-set. This Waffen poster has been duplicated over the course of the 20th Century and I even had a version I got in the early 2000s. Today online, I saw three of the posters and one good example is at snyderstreasures.com. With this one you posted, I question the back of it. It looks too 'white' and fresh with no German nor ANY printing company info at the bottom front of the image, so that alone makes me think it's a re-print. Paper quality is an issue but it makes it better to spot re-prints and the one I had was onionskin paper cheap as garbage, but then...posters with heavy card-like stock are not the norm for that era, either. The German poster should be a standard weight and I am basing that claim on the 22 German pieces in my collection that span WWI to post-WWII. One last note, my re-print had recruitment information in that bottom red quarter, this one is blank and so are the other three I saw online. Not to say yours IS fake (could be print run w/o text) but all things considered, it was wise to pass on it.
Thanks for the input, Will! I was indeed referring to the rosette pattern of the offset printing method when I responded to Ned. The most common reproduction of this poster has French recruiting office information in the orange space at the bottom. Those reproductions are also commonly folded in quarters. Many of the original posters were printed blank, and the individual recruiting office information was added later. There are authentic pieces with this information along the bottom, but they are rarer, and you can tell the difference between the old fonts (often used in different sizes on the same poster) and the new fonts. Here are some "French" fakes:
And here is "the real deal":
The paper used for the poster in question was quite white, based on the pictures, but the composition of the paper was consistent with what I've seen used for authentic posters of this type. Here is a comparison I made with an authentic piece (click on it to see it in greater detail):
Here are a couple of other comparison photos I made, but never uploaded to this thread (click on them to see them in greater detail):
Overall, I think there was a pretty good chance that this was an original piece, although I just couldn't be sure based on the photos alone. I'll get my shot at another one in the future, though.
Tarnmilitaria.com | V 2.0
This man sells posters very often. I don`t know if they are all original, but ofc there is guarantee.
Regards, Job
Similar Threads
Posting Permissions
.
Bookmarks