Start of the Fakes
In 1989 I saw an advert in Exchange and Mart,,Military Badges £1 each so sent for catalogue to M Marsh,,they had a pictorial catalogue of every badge known and all at £1-£2 each,,that started the flood in army badges for sale,
Then one day I bought a Copy of Gunmart and in there was a guy called Green selling Brass badges of all British military badges then 6 month after that all the extremely rare Scottish Militia and yeomanary and Volunteer badges started to appear that one could only read about, after that the hobby of badge collecting was ruined,,even today on Ebay one is scared to buy any badges in case they are recently made.Im sure like many here,I collected badges in 60s-80s they were hard to find and most were either made of Nickel,or Bronze,,wasnt anything called white metal (otherwise tin or alloy) as an ex Black Watch man I always liked the way Scottish badges were slightly domed in middle,then appeared flat badges and they all look ghastly,I gave up after 80s was to risky getting fingers burnt buying rubbish as some fakes were so good,so I restricted myself if they didnt have Gaunt or Lewis etc on back I wouldnt buy.
Its like Ebay i would say 98% are fake.another good hobby ruined.
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