AFC Wings
 

Hi colleagues
what are your thoughts on this wing WW1 period or 1920's

Rob

Rob,
Drop Julian Tennant a message , I tend to run my AFC wings by him ,usually after I have bought them though lol .
Cheers
Steve

Why the canvas material stitched to back ,...that would be of concern to me .

Yep that is what has me concerned ,can you PM or email his email address if possible .

Rob

Bit of a coincidence but a friend has just purchased a padded RAF wing here in the UK which has a similar sewn on backing?....same colour.....not sure...

Is it possible for you to get a photo and post it here??

Cheers

Will ask him if I can post pics. probably be tomorrow now.

PADDED RAF WING
 

Attachment 184843

Attachment 184844

Although at an angle, on the photo of the AFC wings the centre line of the crown looks, well, offcentre. The central lettering on both looks a bit wonky too. Although the front of the AFC wing looks pretty good the thread of the RAF wing looks more like course string rather than silk, akin to the Pakistani/Indian repros.

AFC wings are not my area but the overall quality of the two is probably not what I'd expect. The backing of these Indian repro looks messy and is easily recognisable and may explain why an odd backing has otherwise needlessly been sewn on.

Thanks for posting the photos realownlee and I think we may have 2 repro wings here for sure.

Rob

I reckon these look like a WW2 era reproduction, but as previously stated Julian Tennant will be able to tell you.
Here is a link https://juleswings.wordpress.com/

A couple more views.
 

Attachment 184858
Attachment 184859 No idea why they are sideways:( I didn't like it as soon as I saw it.

:)

Here is an RAF mini wing which has appeared today online. I have several sets of mini pilots wings, RAF, RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF and in the case of the RAF there is a common standard pattern which is frequently seen. I have one plus what I think is a Canadian made pair, all of them finely woven and really quite nice.

Appearing more often now are repro pairs, Pakistani/Indian made and easy to spot immediately. As soon as I saw these I thought repro, due to the shape and , although not so obvious here, the rather string like thread rather than fine silk thread. I looked for a picture if the back (as the Asian repro are all the same, messy) and surprise surprise, there is cloth stitched on.

Although some of my mini wings have cloth, it is exclusively to hold in padding, as on their full sized sisters, either as manufactured or altered by the airmans. These aren't and they are the only flat mini wings I've seen with a backing. Why? Maybe to hide the obvious messy threads...?

(I would add that the dealer selling them is first class, and would not sell repro as original intentionally. Just shows they can easily fool). :)