Thank you both for your thoughts and insight and thanks for your NW photos Mike. It is certainly possible these items were initially purchased in London decades ago and a couple of decades before I started collecting. I hadn’t heard that such fakes were being flogged back then; that is very useful information and a very probable explanation for their existence. Can you narrow down the date a bit SAS1? Do other long time collectors recall this or have additional details? I agree that both the “R” & “O” look hand stitched. The attached blow-ups show more detail and also illustrate the threads are different, at least on the “R” – I missed that until I took these enlarged pictures, my mistake. One wonders if the person who created these obtained unfinished wings and added the final lettering or removed the stitching from a standard wing before adding their own lettering. I haven’t heard of anyone trying to remove stitches but if it can be done without disturbing the base felt material, it would add more credibility to the argument that these and similar variants are completely faked. I’ll try it and post results down the road. The backing (which I haven’t shown) would tend to hide a multitude of sins too but I’m hesitant to remove it to look. It is a bit different than regular wings and the same I think on all three suggesting they were all done by the same person. What complicates this a bit is that it is the same backing that was on the previous large curve stylized AG wing of the earlier thread. Those looked machine made to me and had matching thread (I think – maybe not?).
I also agree that these would never have been official examples or sanctioned sealed patterns but could they not have been examples for some other purpose? We have published sketches of “proposed” patterns that never made it past the pen & paper stage. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to image the DND put out a request for proposed designs and manufactures patched together some examples hoping to get the contract, would it?
My full working title for this little project is actually, RCAF Aircrew wings; Prototypes, Rarities, Fakes and Mysteries. It’s only by getting other opinions and perhaps consensus that I’ll be able to specifically describe each one in my collection and then hopefully, we’ll all know what to watch for in the future; what is legitimate, what isn’t and what lies in that grey area in between. For now, let’s put these two (and the NW straight wing?) in the “fake” category unless better evidence comes to light. Perhaps, this would be a good spot for a reader’s pole for each design (5 for legitimate, 1 for fake) but I’m not sure how to add that at this point.
|