RFC wings - British & Commonwealth Military Badge Forum

Phillip · #1 29-01-16, 10:53 PM

Hi
My first post so hi , this looks an interesting place . Can you have a look at these wings and see what you think please . In reality they could have been made anywhere from 1917 to 1970 . The case they are in was def made after wwii . The case's original owner was a wwi 2 seater ace and the 1918 pattern DFC pin with rosette is that vintage ( as certain as I can be anyway ) . He was at the front from Jan 18 so would have been there at the change to RAF . Not sure if he just added a nice copy wing at some point or other . There seems to be a multitude of different types around and these don't look like any I have seen so far . I've had these about 16 years and every now and again I wonder about the wings origin . It seems from reading a few posts there are a couple of people on this forum that know a bit about these .
Thanks
Phil

Bill A · #2 30-01-16, 12:13 AM

Hi Phillip, welcome to the Forum.
Your post is active.

Jackhr · #3 30-01-16, 04:36 AM

Any chance of seeing the back of the wings?

Phillip · #4 30-01-16, 06:42 AM

yep,sure

SAS1 · #5 30-01-16, 09:04 AM

Whilst the back of the wing is often a better indicator than the front, and looks pretty good, for me both the wings and ribbon are reproduction items. The wing does not look fine enough for a genuine pre-1918 item.

As for the ribbon, which is the correct style of horizontal bars rather than the later diagonal, more modern reproduction DFC ribbon (of both types) has a much lighter purple stripe than that of the original which is usually quite dark in colour.

So based on the photos I think both items are later reproductions.

Phillip · #6 30-01-16, 09:43 AM

Thanks SAS1 that's interesting stuff , you may well be right as nothing in life is ever certain . The perplexing thing is I showed this setup to the pilots son and he seemed to think it was his fathers case ? That doesn't mean they were never replaced I guess . The son was quite old at the time of course , but he was kind enough to give me some things relating to his dad . It is a bit odd with his medals to be honest , because even tho he won the DFC and bar when the horizontal stripes were in , both his medals and his miniatures feature the later diagonal ribbon ? The DFC pin seems to be wrapped around something that's not metal , but not very flexible ? No idea what it is , may well be a type of plastic ? , but feels different to plastic ? From what I can see .
As for the wings , well if you say they are not original ..who am I to dispute that ? I'm not the expert , and I was after an expert opinion .
Thank you .

Phillip · #7 30-01-16, 01:41 PM

Trial by forum , you'd think after all these years I had learned my lesson . There...are no experts . Just opinions .

arrestingu · #8 30-01-16, 02:02 PM

not keen on this set up !! Avoid !!

SAS1 · #9 30-01-16, 02:49 PM

Im not an expert. Despite collecting aviation items for almost 40 years now Im still learning, and others may have a different opinion.

As to the DFC ribbon, I've not found any order saying the original style had to be discontinued by those who had won it, and changed to the later style, but he may just have thought he'd prefer to 'update' it to the style that was then (and now) in use.

arrestingu · #10 30-01-16, 03:10 PM

these boxed set ups were being sold by a seller on ebay, a number of years back.they appear to be vet boxed sets in fact they were repro boxed up.
the wings do not look period.
I wouldn't be happy with this in my collection

Phillip · #11 01-02-16, 12:25 AM

Sorry for the rant SAS1 , had just came home from the pub thinking about the dfc pin and gave it a bend to see if it flexed and heard it crack ! Stupid dumb aussie drunk haha .
Your comments were interesting and I can't say what is from 1918 and what isn't . But anyway as I said , his son identified this case , so maybe The ace was sold it by the guy that faked it in his back shed ?... Attempt at humour . So unless he was wrong I'm fairly happy it was in their family . I'm not looking to sell it , in fact back then I offered to give it away . There will always be differences of opinion and grey areas in 100 year old stories .

That other idiots comments . Now that's classic forum .

You can buy the aces full size medals for 20k if anyone's keen . They are on the market again . They were sold by Spinks 20 odd years ago . They must be fakes because they don't contain an MC ( which several forums demand he won ) and the dfc ribbon is a diagonal one ....another attempt at humour

Jackhr · #12 01-02-16, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phillip

Sorry for the rant SAS1 , had just came home from the pub thinking about the dfc pin and gave it a bend to see if it flexed and heard it crack ! Stupid dumb aussie drunk haha .
Your comments were interesting and I can't say what is from 1918 and what isn't . But anyway as I said , his son identified this case , so maybe The ace was sold it by the guy that faked it in his back shed ?... Attempt at humour . So unless he was wrong I'm fairly happy it was in their family . I'm not looking to sell it , in fact back then I offered to give it away . There will always be differences of opinion and grey areas in 100 year old stories .

That other idiots comments . Now that's classic forum .

You can buy the aces full size medals for 20k if anyone's keen . They are on the market again . They were sold by Spinks 20 odd years ago . They must be fakes because they don't contain an MC ( which several forums demand he won ) and the dfc ribbon is a diagonal one ....another attempt at humour

Phil can you put a link to his medals and tell us his name ? As far as if it is real or not unless something is in your hands to view it can be difficult to say one way or another unless it is blatantly wrong can you post better pictures of the case and the contents please.

Thanks mate

SAS1 · #13 01-02-16, 03:36 AM

I didn't see any rant there!

Families, especially if not clued up on military things can be the worse source. I visited a dam busters son and photographed his dad's mounted medals. He told me the DFM was a repro as his dad had given the real one to a museum. I pointed out it was actually the real one, although it had a new ribbon when it was mounted with the rest. It's original, darker stripe ribbon with pin hanger was still in the case of issue.

Phillip · #14 01-02-16, 05:57 AM

Ha ! , great story SAS1
Just posted this pic to confirm what you said about the purple colour of the horizontal ribbon . The darker one is a pic I snipped out of the aussie war museum site . Posted then on a photo of the old guy when he was in the home guard . Back of the photo is written " inspection by the C in C " and dated in 1954 . I see he has his wings sown on his tunic ( they still don't look like the ones I posted , not the flat type ) but he did like his wings haha !
Thanks for your post Jack , I appreciated that . I think i'll leave it there on my old mate for the moment .

p.s. took a sneek peek at the back of the pin rosette ...didn't have " made in china " on it....so i'm taking that as a win

Jackhr · #15 01-02-16, 07:51 AM

Ok Phil if you don't want to make it public that's ok ,but if you want to PM or email me feel free to do so.

Cheers