This topic is an attempt to record the known examples of the late Alf Bat’s creations. During the late 1970s and 80s Alf Bat produced very good, realistic looking paintings on sections of aircraft panels. The pieces included unit emblems, victory tallies, and swastikas painted in such a way that they looked as if they had been souvenired from actual BOB crashsites. They were weathered and worn by Alf Bat to look the part. These paintings were often commissioned and were not intended to be a forgery by the late Alf bat but unfortunately the artworks have changed ownership over time and have started to turn up on eBay being sold as original WW2 crashsite relics. Possibly unbeknown to the new owners or a scam. Hopefully other members can help by posting photos of examples of the late Alf Bat’s handy work so unsuspecting aviation enthusiasts are not duped into spending large sums on fake crashsite relics in the future. 🙂
I’ll start the ball rolling:
[ATTACH]210480[/ATTACH]
The above was marketed on eBay as an original Battle of Britain relic with a staring bid of £900. It was sold as being taken at the time from the following BOB crashsite:
15th September1940
VERY RARE AND VERY SCARCE RELIC FROM THE BTTLE OF BRITAIN
THIS IS A PIECE OF MESSERSCHMITT BF109E-4 (WNr.2803) FROM 9/JG51
CRASHED AT SKINNERS CORNER MASCALLS NEAR PADDOCK WOOD KENT
AT 2:20 PM DURING COMBAT WITH RAF FIGHTERS
THIS PLANE WAS FLOWN BY FW.KLOTZ. KIA.
As you can see alarm bells start ringing because the emblem depicted on the painting is in fact the III./JG27 emblem and should not have even been painted on Fw. Klotz’s Bf109.
[ATTACH]210485[/ATTACH]
The above was painted on pilots head armour from a Hurricane.
[ATTACH]210482[/ATTACH]
If anyone can add any text, comments or photos it will be appreciated.
By: Arabella-Cox - 16th December 2012 at 16:17
Quite probably all the work of Alf Batt.
On some of his earlier pieces he painted a little black “x” on the back somewhere. Other pieces are give-aways because of the paint which has run through tears in the metal, rivet holes etc. Mostly, if one compares the guage of the metal, the reverse and the panel lines it is easy to spot that the piece in question did not come from (a) either that type of aircraft or (b) the section of airframe where, for example, a unit badge or swastika might have been painted. Always, the paint is acrylic (often gloss) and not organic period paint.
In the case of the badge that forms the main topic of this thread, the unit is incorrect as has been pointed out. Not only that but the badge is hugely oversized and the panel lines/rivets etc are all wrong for where this was placed on the 109.
Alf Batt was not the only forger of these items, and we do know of others who have produced similar ‘artwork’ – including the piece of Do17 that became a Me109 relic….although I don’t think we can talk about that. I can feel another ban coming on if I go further!
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December 16, 2012 at 3:17 pm