Third Reich badges

[pointblank0]

Does anyone know of any good sites that sell genuine third reich badges for a reasonable price either in Britain or will ship to Britain?

 

[tigbrand]

I sold my Tinnie collection and medals a while back, so many excellent repros and post war restrikes that its a minefield! Ulric of England and M&T militaria are respected, but you would be safer investing in a Nigerian unicorn farm. Caveat emptor mate.

 

[Millsman]

You might try Time Militaria in Hythe Kent

http://www.timemilitaria.com

I know the owner and he is pretty expert in German badges.

John

 

[pointblank0]

I started collecting third reich many years back and stopped due to the amount of really good repro's on the market sold as original. So good infact that I would never have been able to tell the difference with some. Plus the cost is so high on rare items, but I though I would try and put up a framed piece of unrare badges as a little decoration.

Tanks very much for the replies and I'll take a look at that link and have a little look.

Rob

 

[smle2009]

As tig says it is a minefield out there....for sellers as well as buyers. Years ago I used to sell militaria at three locations in the south of England,in the good old days before on line sales took over, it soon became impossible to sell genuine German award badges because of the quality repros/fakes that were around....perfect example is the anti partisan badge I use for my advatar on here,I've had it since the early 70's and know where it came from....but try and sell it for what it's worth and it becomes a fake..try to sell it cheaper than its worth and it becomes a repro....even well established dealers who say it's an original are too scared to get their 'fingers burnt' by it.

One thing I did learn was if it's got a makers mark,avoid it as most repros can't resist putting them on,and one without a makers mark is more likely to be genuine

Tony

 

[sksvlad]

Just to add to many sensible advices given above. When fake quality improved well beyond my level of expertise (which is very low), I stopped buying German medals and switched to the Soviet ones, at that time an average Soviet medal was $10 or so. My reasoning was that the originals were so cheap that it made no monetary sense to fake them. Then came "cheap" and good fakes, with Eastern European enamel aging techniques, so you could not tell the age by the back cracks in enamel. So I stopped altogether. Collecting upper end Soviet medals is better, many were made of gold and silver. Buy them if they have original paperwork, which is probably being faked right now as I write.