Argonnen, Champagne, Somme Medals - Opinions Please

[AlecH]

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying these three medals. Recently a few of these faked medals have been on offer - they were easy to recognize the lettering was not right and wavy. These three however look as they may have a chance. I only have these three pictures, according to the seller all bear the makers mark - Fleck & Sohn - Hamburg 3 - Ges. gesch. I've looked through a couple of catologues the pictures are not the best and I'm no expert in this field, what do members think ? if you dont like them, could you please state why. Posts with the word fake or not for my collection - without any giving a single reason, dont bring anyone further.
Regards

[oradour]

Alec,on the photographs posted, they look a O.K to me...rare desirable post war vet associations medals, any individually for sale are rarely seen, let alone all three.
Prost ! Steve.

[AlecH]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your post. In Detlev Niemann's 2010 catologue these are all priced at 100 euro. I believe the rarest one is the Argonnen Cross, concentrating on this one, it went to 166 euro - too much for me. Annoyingly the seller had placed all three with the same auction ending time, gave me no time to switch to one of the other ones. In the end, sod's law I didn't get any.
Last weekend I visited Reichertshofen - biggest military fair in South Germany, made a point of looking out for these crosses there, didn't find a single one on offer, makes me wonder, perhaps they are a lot rarer than poeple think.
Regards

[CCMJR]

Fifteen years ago, you could hardly give these interwar "vanity" medals away. Now, with the expansion of the collector base and the information available on the Internet, the prices for nice enameled medals like these have risen along with the new level of interest. The corresponding documents for these medals are equally beautiful and much more scarce.

CCMJR