M43 feldbluse - newly made and aged - a trap for young players!

[Danmark]

This online seller is doing the right thing insomuch as that they are CLEARLY explaining this is "new made from original used wartime fabrique, buttons and materials" and asking about half the going rate for an original. Fine, at least they are making it plain for a buyer.

My main concern is that with the sort of aging this has, the line will quickly be blurred as to what is original or not...... and this may well be touted by future owners as being stripped original issue and eventually the whole hobby will go to hell in a hand-basket.

We are seeing all sorts of relics faked more and more .... enjoy your ww2 militaria while you can - this sort of thing really scares me away from uniforms!

Dan

[bigmacglenn]

Hopefully there are limits to the amount of original cloth available to this guy, lol...
cheers, Glenn

[Danmark]

Ok - am I slow here?

Is this so wrong as to fool no one?( I thought it was quite passable )

[Adrian Stevenson]

I am certain it would fool many. Much worse stuff does..

Cheers, Ade.

[Dean]

Pretty convincing, to say the least. Im glad the seller has labled it as reworked original fabric, though. But as you said, who knows what the next owner will market it as?

[Dean]

This late war fabric was a mixture of recycled wool from old blankets, damaged uniforms , captured uniform hoards from occupied countries , namely a huge stockpile of fabric from a textile factory when Germany first occupied Italy early on prior to Mussolini's rule.

I think I remember reading they even used cardboard or plant fiber,
(either one of these or both were used, I'm a bit foggy regarding this detail) it was broken down into a pulp, integrated with different fabric fibers and reworked due to lack of supplies late in the war. Please correct me if I made any obvious mistakes in what I have written, the last thing I want is to give out false info. in the meantime, I'll check my reference material, do some fact-checking to make sure I was correct. bare in mind, I am basing this info on my limited memory from a few sources in particular, volume 6 of Andrew Mollo's 'uniforms of the WAFFEN SS '.

When looking close at this you can see light color or "off-white" lines here and there probably as a result of the dye failing to stick to the different fabric fiber If my memory serves me correctly, and I believeI'm tripped out on the faded collar litzen and CT area , as well as the field repair on the tunic in the OP. that's scary.

[Danmark]

This late war fabric was a mixture of wool and other fibers due to lack of supplies. When looking close at this you can see light color lines here and there.

I'm tripped out on the faded collar litzen and CT area , as well as the field repair on the tunic in the OP. that's scary.

Yeah that's what freaked me too. He also has M43 caps that are scary for a couple hundred.

[Adrian Stevenson]

The trick on the "faded" areas to show where insignia "once" sat is done by placing insignia or card in that shape and then spraying the whole thing with cold tea. Instant "dirt" and it leaves the ghost of the insignia.

Cheers, Ade.

[Dean]

Very interesting and insightful info, Ade . These fakers have a million different tricks up their sleeves, (pun intended)

I am never ceased to be amazed when I hear about different methods of aging or mimicking original items. That having been said,I'm of the opinion that not all such methods or tricks of the trade are necessarily meant to be nefarious or deceptive to relieve novice collectors of their hard earned (or otherwise) money.

Some might be used as movie wardrobe or props that have a realistic look or even intended for historically accurate reenactment and I have no problem with said purposes, just as long as they are initially sold and described as accurate representations or copies of the original articles.
However, the problem wherein lies AFTER the item leaves the honest vendor and is resold by an unscrupulous and ill intentioned party and hits the private open market like eBay for example or similar venues.

That cold tea method used to age items that Ade mentioned is a new one to me, as far as cloth goes anyway but I'm familiar with that trick being used to make papers and documents and the commonly encountered and personally LOATHED , rather convincing fake photographs that try to mimic the common term known as "foxing" and sold on well known auction sites online for some ridiculously high prices . I admit I've been fooled more times than I'd care admit , early on in my photo and document collecting days. Thanks to this invaluable forum with its wealth of knowledge of its Mods and members, namely Bill T. , we have a thread dedicated solely to this topic and has saved people a lot of money and heartache.

Apologies for the long winded novel, but this is a personal feeling I have about this topic but I couldn't think of a better way to articulate my non-expert observation. I hope my interpretation made sense to everyone .