We brushed on this subject in the recent copyright thread. It’s a shame, that private military researchers have such limited access to the collections. Years ago it was the norm, but today it’s no longer a problem making the pictures available for online browsing. Far larger collections have gone online – often with the help of volunteers.

If they insist on charging for the use of images, then at least make a low resolution image available online, so researchers can find the material without traveling. If they want to run a business with the material, then make it a darn business. Just as long as they remember, that they are in competition with plenty of public domain pictures these days – 95% of their material can be replaced (for publishing use) with public domain material from other sources.

Not sure about the statistics, but I’m glad you posted your findings. I had also once heard, that the Bf-109 had a very narrow track and since just accepted the as fact (I think many have). Nice to know, that the Spitfire is narrower. Now I can bore my friends with a new juicy bit of information :p

The person in contact with the seller should ask for a copy of said Radiocarbon dating report. It would be a fair question from an interested buyer.

As they say somewhere else: just for the lulz (the laugh)

I thinks its some sort of dolls eye too. wächter means something like “guardian”, so its something that keeps an eye on oxygen – a flow indicator.

Would they need oxygen in their gliders?

The instruments are WWII era. Here seen in a Me163B

If it’s literally impossible to tell the fakes from the genuine, does that make the genuine article worthless, or does it add value to the fake?

From what I gather after reading this thread, there is no certain way to tell them apart. Real combat reports may, or may not, have had a punched a hole in the top left hand corner. It also may, or may not, have had a rubber stamped date. Maybe some airfields had rubber stamps and some didn’t. Also we can’t assume that if the report has ring-binder holes in the left hand side it’s a fake. These holes could have been punched at any time the last 65 years.

Am I correct in finding the following procedure for filling in combat reports:
1: Pilot flies
2: Pilot gives oral report to the intelligence officer, who takes notes (as per Tim’s picture)
3: intelligence officer types out the report (when he gets around to do it)
4: Pilot signs it

If so, this could account for any discrepancies regarding cannons, cat 3 damage and so forth. Maybe the intelligence officer had moved from a unit, where the main armament was cannons and simply wrote that by default. For all intend and purpose, the combat report remains the same. The terminology must be the words of the intelligence officer and not the pilot, who might have had better things to do than proofreading such a report, as long as it’s more or less correct – maybe he actually just signed it without reading it. Even the use of airframe serial for identification could be explained, by a mix of inexperience and readily available information. It would not have mattered for the purpose of the report.

It also appears that there are a few different forms with slight variations. Even if they were used officially at different times, that does not mean, that an early type could not be used later (however, the opposite is naturally impossible).

Like Creaking Door wrote: I’m glad I’m not in the business of collecting combat reports.

Not really. As has been amply demonstrated here, by viewers of various expertise, there are numerous clues in the fakes that set of alarm bells, not to mention vague and un-anchored claims for authentication and testing. I’m not making any accusations, but there’s enough hard data and missing data in this thread to draw a conclusion in these examples.

The classic clue is anachronism, the issue in the Vermeers, with props he didn’t have in his studio when the painting was supposed to have been painted. Likewise here anachronistic terms and equipment is a give-away.

Direct copies will be ‘blown’ if enough testing is applied, and a comparison of two ‘identical’ reports can show which does not have the right make up. (For instance, original paper/forms faked up with later writing is a common issue in testing – where ink in folds that have to have been made after the writing or typing was supposed to have been ‘done’ is one well known test. Typewriters have as much a distinctive individuality as handwriting – and are harder to fake. Identified variant typed letter-keys matching known fakes or not matching other known authentic reports on that Intelligence Officer’s typewriter are dead give-aways.) They don’t usually get that level of testing as they aren’t important or valuable enough to get it – yet – as Malcolm has touched on already.
[Edit: As Beermat’s touched on before I posted regarding typewriters – and in answer to his question aloud, they are hard to fake a ‘match’ to a known typewriter.]

Conversely your ‘archive’ scenario isn’t as watertight as one would hope, despite the best efforts of curators. There have been fake documents planted in archives to support other material outside. However a clear and complete history of a document or artefact (the ‘provenance’ term so often mis-used in vintage aviation) will help support an item’s authenticity.

Regards,

It’s not the people who are able to tell the difference that’s worrying me; it’s the people who can’t. There are plenty of people working with historical research that do not possess the required knowledge (to detect a fake combat report).

Contamination of original and “protected” archives is contamination of history – it happens and is damn hard to detect.

@gedburke3: That made my day 😀