Reproduction Livrets

I emailed pics to a gentleman in California of an original Livret that I have. He is in the process of producing reproductions for reenactors/living historians to use so you can keep your originals (yes some people actually use real German soldbuchs here) in a safe place. When he is ready I will post all information here. Just wanted to give everyone the heads up.

I bet - unless it's clearly marked as reproduction - some of them will pop up, in a short time, on eBay as 'original' and 'rare' Rumanian army paybooks.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on May 19, 2007 09:49 am

Hallo Denes,

Good point, with regards Repro items, there is a very big US Company selling from Batavia in Illinois USA.

They have in their catalog many pages of Ww1 & WW2 German repro items including:

PLM, 1813 Iron Cross, 1870 Iron cross, 1914 Iron Cross, Wound badges, Navy Wound Badges Zep Badges, Pilot Badges, Navy Air Gunner, Austrian Storn Trooper, Bugaria Observer badge, Turkish Pilots Badge Various belt buckles.

But, its the 8 pages of iii reich items that worry me, none are marked as REPRO's

Kevin in Deva

This post has been edited by New Connaught Ranger on May 19, 2007 03:27 pm

They will look brand new never issued and blank which would most likely be a dead give away to a reproduction item.

As for ribbons, etc. a lot of collectors here use a black light test to see if fabric glows or not.

An enterprising person will always find ways to turn brand-new paper into aged worn used with appropriate stamps and ink.

German liverts / Soldbooks to ss units and paras are being faked and offered for sale all the time.

By the way, who mentioned ribbons??

Kevin in Deva

Just an example to show one way of finding fakes in one aspect of collecting. Medals have certain things to look for most of the time and as for SS or FJ items would only buy from veterans of those units. I know two SS vets in the US but wouldn't ask for them to sell me their items.

If the collectors of Militaria had to buy only from the veterans of the Units, they were interested in collecting from, there would be large crowds standing outside to few doors.
Most veterans are long gone, and with each passing month the resource for original material dries up.

As a collector, I would like to see legislation brought to bear the firms who make Replicas, are required by law to mark them so, People spending their money need some form of protection from the crooks who would look to cheat them for big profit.

If Replica Liverets are going to be made, then the word Replica, should be discretly applied to all pages, to avoid them being sold on as an original item.

The only people who could be against this idea are the members of the former group mentioned.

Kevin in Deva


This post has been edited by New Connaught Ranger on May 26, 2007 08:03 am

Just began going over the prototype for these one page at a time. Damn good job just going through where the folds on the original livret made it difficult to read. As for knowing if these are reproductions he'll put something on it to make sure people know they are fake.