Grand Cross of the White Rose - Copy






Original Grand Cross of the White Rose






















































































Mannerheim Cross 2nd class, high quality copy
































































Fake Civil guards course badge





Original civil guards course badge, reverse





























































































Helsinki White Guard badge 1918, blue-white



































FAKED FINNISH ORDERS & DECORATIONS

by Jani Tiainen (Originally Published in in finnish in Kaliiberi magazine 6/1998-1/1999), Revised 2005.


 Collecting orders and decorations gained a lot of popularity in Finland in the beginning of 1990's and as the interest and the number of potential buyers grew, the uglier downside of this business reared its head.


 Our internationally most notable orders have already been faked as early as in the 1970's, but in the late 80's and early 90's dishonest entrepeneurs became interested in objects collected mainly within our national borders:
  Course badges for civil guards, several regimental badges and other lesser known objects were faked by the dozens. On some badges the situation calmed down as the fakes and the forgerers became known, but the volume of these fakes was so large that new objects are discovered to this day.

(Picture 1: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose, Central European copy. Enamel is quite poor in quality and one of the lions is heading clockwise when others counterclockwise.
Picture 2: Original Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose)

Some 60 years have passed since the Second World War. For collectors this means that obtaining orders, decorations or medals from their original owner or even knowing to whom the objects have belonged in the past is difficult at best. These days various merit medals and crosses find their way into our collections from auctions and fairs or straight from another collector.
 Middlemen and the often considerable value of these objects usually complicate the process of verifying the object's originality. Although the problem of fakes in Finland isn't in the same scale as the faking of orders, decorations, badges and medals of the Third Reich era, the subject should be examined more liberally. For example, in Finnish literature only Lassi Kaipainen's Vapaa Suomi - Suojeluskunta ja Lottamerkit touches on the subject briefly.

Fake and Reproduction

Fake is a reproduction or an alteration of the original object. The purpose of producing a fake is to make it look like something it is not in an effort to gaining some monetary profit.  
An object which is manufactured to replace a lost or destroyed original is a reproduction. Objects made for museums or collections to represent unobtainable originals are also reproductions. Those who collect objects of the Order of the Cross of Liberty may dream of some day having the Grand Cross of the Order or at least a 2nd class Mannerheim-Cross in their collection. The problem, however, is that only 35 pieces of the former were awarded to people in very high positions and that the latter too is out of your average collector's budget. The only way to obtain the cross is to get a decent reproduction.
 For example, in Great Britain the number of collectors has become so large that certain companies have made copy Victoria Crosses and George Crosses for collectors at a very reasonable price. Nearly every object of the Third Reich has been reproduced as well.
 The situation in Finland is quite different however - If someone wants a certain object in his collection, one way to do this is to have it made by a goldsmith. If this kind of a reproduction is clearly indicated with the word COPY or is marked otherwise to be different from the original, this sort of procedure is by all means acceptable. However, if the copy is unmarked and its quality is so high that it can be modified by a goldsmith to match the original, we are dealing with a fake. The problem with reproductions here in Finland is that they are relatively much more closer to the original than the aforementioned Victoria crosses.

Financial appeal of faking an object can be quite hard to resist. Faked and copied orders and medals can be divided into categories as follows:

 1st Class "Superfakes"
- produced to match the original object completely. Material, hallmarks and overall appearance are identical - most of them perfect. Sometimes these fakes are made using original parts or at least old tools and dies - and therefore extremely hard to distinguish as a fake.
These type of fakes are mostly of old Imperial German or Russian orders and certain rare objects of the Third Reich.
 Modern technology has given fakers the power of 3D-modelling and possibility to manufacture identical duplicates of the original. Vica versa - collectors and researches are then forced to use computerized methods to analyze materials and paints and compare them to known originals... Total science both ways.

(Picture 3: Mannerheim Cross 2nd class. Very high quality copy by local goldsmith. Pictured example not numbered, but modified reverses have been detected.)

 2nd Class Objects for museums and collectors.
- Reproduced to match the original as closely as possible. Sometimes the manufacturing costs are relatively high and overall appearance is good.
 Only the smallest details : e.g. numbering, engraving and the hallmarks, are the distinguishing particulars that allow to recognize the copy from the original.
On copies destined for museum or other similar collections, the word ’COPY’ or some other such indication should be visible For sure, this detail can later be removed by polishing etc.but it can at the same time reveal a fake unless the polishing was carried out with the utmost care.
 Imperial German and Russian orders are again categories with a lot of reproductions of this type.
 Appreciated but unfortunately very rare move was made by Kuenker Auktion from Osnabruck Germany in their summer 2005 auction They stamped high quality fakes with "Copy" mark to try to avoid their reselling as originals.

3rd Class commercial, small-budget fakes.
 -The most common type of fakes to made to look like the original. Howerer,  manufacturing costs are being kept at the minimum and therefore finishing, enamelling and small details give these away. Usually material, details, catch, pin, screw, hinge etc. are different than the known originals.
 Manufacturers' hallmarks and silver hallmarks are absent or they are poorly represented.
 Most of the fakes of finnish Orders and medals fit in to this category, but lack of reference material makes them dangerous for collectors.
 Large number of fakes can still be avoided quite easily by learning few details, since 75% of all faked Finnish items were made by one person(!) He was locally well known collector and author of the first "collector friendly" book about finnish Liberation war badges and medals in 1980's. Most of the faked items were spread around in the late 1980's - early 1990's when he managed to buy an old stock of tools and dies from famous manufacturer Veljekset Sundqvist. After he passed away few years ago left overs of his "stock" were scattered around and after several years of silence these badges have started to pop-up again more frequently - expecially in finnish "eBay", Huuto.net. Among collectors these fakes are known by the name of the home town of their maker; Naantali.

(Picture 4: Fake Civil Guards supply Officer course badge. Typical "Naantali" screw nut, poor enamel and material.
Picture 5: Reverse of the original Civil Guards course badge with appropriate silver hallmarks and old "Veljekset Sundqvist" mark not used in modern repros.)

4th Class cheap tourist souveniers.
 - Object may resemble the original, but finishing, treatment of surface and materials don't match the original and in fact, that's intentional. Most of the time the reverse is the weakest part of these objects. Closer inspection of the object usually reveals its nature to the trained eye.

Other Fakes and Techniques

 Manufacturing an object from start to finish is not the only problem concerning fakes. Modifying objects is for the most part a more simple way. Removing or adding different parts, as well as different modifications on surface, gilding, silvering and coppering and changing a ribbon are not technically hard procedures.
 Some sort of a chemical treatment of the surface is sometimes sufficient to turn an object into another more valuable one. 

 Hardest for collectors of Finnish items are the Crosses of Liberty with red cross insignia - central emblem is the same from 4th class to 2nd class, only finishing (gild, silvered) and other details of the cross show the difference between classes.
It is known that by quite easy work: removing central emblem from lower class, electroplating it and adding it in to the higher class makes almost perfect product... but just almost. The 2nd class of the Order of the cross of Liberty w/ red cross have been awarded twice (!) - both are known in museums / collections, so do not buy it even one finnish dealer has had one just this year... The lower classes have also some details that fakers have not yet managed to duplicate - and for obvious reasons I can not mention them here, but I will be happy to help and examine suspicious crosses.

Easier to identify, but more common as an example is the Civil Guards' iron cross of merit, that can be silvered and made to look like the silver class. Absence of silver hallmarks is usually the easiest way to detect a scam like this - but there is also one original late war type just made like this, and some silver orders and medals were made without these hallmarks... The only way to verify their authenticity is through chemical testing. 
 Another difficult medal is The medal of Liberty 1st class. There were official non-silver awards made from 2nd class medals by electroplating the - for both types 1939 and 1941. Actually most of the 1939 medals in the market are not hallmarked silver and during the final months of the war when material supplies ran dry, silvered medals were given out instead of the sterling silver ones (type 1941). 
 But there are NO original model 1918 1st class medals without appropriate silver hallmarks - neither very rare "Mourning medals" or the 1st class medals for civilian merits!

As just mentioned things get more problematic when an original object is modified in such a way that its structure does not change but it becomes an another object. Not only modifying the finish or central emblem - enamel can be added!
 For example, three different Regiments of the Helsinki White Guards in the liberation war had similar symbol but different colors. -  Their regimental badges can be told apart from a small enamelled part which is of a different color in each type of badge (blue, yellow and green). Blue variation is very common, the orange relatively scarce and green does not exist - Even there are ones in the market. Good to know is also the fact, that blue variation is hallmarked by year mark 1918 and orange by 1919.   
Generally by removing the enamelled part from the original badge and replacing it with some rare color or color combination, recognicing an item as a fake may become quite hard.

(Picture 6: Helsinki White Guards regimental badge from 1918. Most common Blue-White variation)


 One of the commonest and also one of the most easily detected fakes of this sort is the Civil Guard's 1st and 2nd class badges of proficiency turned into the "excellence" class badge of proficiency. In addition to enamel and surface in general.
 The Civil Guard's badge of proficiency m/21 can be turned into a badge for medical proficiency by adding Aisculus' wands - though detected fakes have been so far poorly duplicated. The same principle has been used to add red cross' emblems to the medals of the Order of the Cross of Liberty. 
 The aforementioned procedures can usually be detected, because added parts differ from the original badge's construction and they are usually manufactured with a different way.

Names and other marks and engravings which are made afterwards are usually a problem in more recent lots of Finnish commemorative/campaign crosses which lack the important year and/or the unit engraving / stamp on the reverse. An added mark can mostly be detected from the original deeply struck marks because an add-on engraving is usually lighter and engraved by hand or cheap machine. In general this problem is, however, very small in Finland compared to any 3rd reich item or British medals.


 The hardest cases also in Finland are badges which have been manufactured with original tools and even old parts. Original dies, manufacturer's hallmarks and even half-finished parts have been found in goldsmiths' storage rooms. As mentioned before the Veljekset Sundqvist -hallmark can no longer be taken as a guarantee for authenticity as it has been used in most of the fakes in Finland.

Most of the fakes have also been aged artificially. Original, over 50 years old manufactured objects are usually patinated if they have not been cleaned regularly. Therefore forgerers usually patinate the object afterwards. Chemically created patina does not look like the original however : its surface can be oily or it can look like it has been wiped on the surface. Original patina also appears equally in the places where the object has been in contact with air, hands and so forth. In other words, under a screw there should be less patina if any.

Summa Summarum

 There are and will always be those who use any means necessary to gain profit. By pursuing their own (financial) interests they are hurting the whole medal collecting hobby. The only way to fight these persons and their fakes is spreading knowledge, respecting the honest dealers, helping other collectors and avoiding any contact with those who manufacture or sell these forgeries.