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Old 13-10-13, 02:48 PM
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cw2311 cw2311 is offline
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I totally agree that even items from veterans, may or may not be their original war time piece. First and foremost, I’m more concerned as to originality of the artifact whether it is a tunic, badge, etc... Then provenance will be the next part of the puzzle.

I have a friend on this forum who was a curator for many years and he can attest to receiving some uniforms from the family of a VC winner that had more than one name written inside the dress tunic. (Korean War era) So yes, this dress tunic had several owners. I guess you would go with the most prestigious owner to get the bigger dollar return? It had obviously been issued to a couple different people before the final fellow received it who happened to be a VC winner. So it has a list of provenance that goes with it. If he reads this thread, I hope he will comment on this quagmire.

Another example is a WW2 MM that a particular dealer here in Canada married up the ‘missing medals’ and sold it as the original group. These are just a couple examples of provenance complications that can really make it challenging for collectors and dealers to sort through.

I guess at the end of the day, you have to really trust your source along with the more provenance you can get to validate the item(s) in question, the better. Once again, thank you for all your feedback.

Cheers
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I’m always interested in purchasing 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion memorabilia.
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