Traps and fakes...
This topic exists to try to help
collector to identify separate from good to bad some pieces in the flare guns
area.
Be careful, some people are very creative on that subject and try to use our credulity.
Today, the most important
pitfalls to avoid are :
Most of fakes are post war
cartridges bags used by NVA, which are quiet identical to good WWII model, on
which some stamps have been added.
Some details help to see the differences: kind of leather (for NVA model, pig
skin had been used) and lack of marking on the left side of the bag.
Here below are some pictures of NVA flare cartridges bag (which are original for who wants to collect NVA pieces...)
First example:
Second example:
Third example:
You should notice that the
canvas bag is copied too and that, in some cases, the quality of that copies
are quiet good.
In summary, in that area, you
should be very careful!!
Holsters:
As for cartridges bags, some fake flare guns holsters are provided as original.
Some of them are real one but created post war and used by the NVA. They can be
easily recognized by the lack of cleaning rod attaches and by examining passers
belt.
Be careful with reproduction (created for renactors) which can be aged by
malicious people.
Here are some pictures of flare
guns holsters sold as reproduction on an
What is easier to
reproduce such piece and produce a fake? You'll just need some cylindrical
steel bar, a little aluminum cylinder and some concepts and practices of lean.
Even if it seems to be very
easy, at the moment, fakes can be easily recognized due to some big mistakes
some details:
(We will observe that the keyway on the aluminum cylinder is too large and that the leather piece is a copy (not large enough and bad seams)
Rare
models .. and of
course, potentially expensive models ... (such as Mod. Z and including
accessories for the Sturmpistole...).
Some of the German flare
guns (such as Mod. Z) can invite some malicious people to transform a
simple good AC flare gun to a Mod. Z by just adding a 'Z' on the good side of
it and rifling the barrel.
For such model, we would invite
you to be very careful and respect all the collector's commands (take care, be
aware with the nice story, keep you blood cold, test the insertion of a
shell...). Just keep in mind that this kind of transformation is very easy for
somebody who likes tinkering and who has some machining tools (at home or at
workplace.
Concerning the different pieces
accompanying the Sturmpistole (visor, stock, bubble level), they are so rare
that when finding one, all your Senses (with a big 'S') should be in
alert except if you find it in a trash or in a flee market for a penny (avoid
all opportunity on auction web site)!!
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