Fake Me 109 part on eBay?

[kurbelgehause]

Hello All,

I just thought some of you might get a laugh from this.
Go to this link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... =4078&rd=1

Is it just me or does this part look REALLY fake?

1) The part cuts are very clean, I wasn't aware that WWII souvenir hunters carried tin snips as part of their kit.

2) There are rivets where this part was fastened to the neighboring fuselage segment. The segment is gone but the rivets are still there?????

3) No sign of the rivets or holes that should be/have been there to hold a horizontal fuselage longeron.

4) If this piece was obtained by someone in the U.S. airforce, isn't it strange that the bulletholes look more like .30 caliber than .50 caliber?
Unless the Me109 was attacked and shotdown by a T-6 or an early mark Spitfire? Of course, it is possible it was used for target paractice by a G.I.

5) If you look at any decent drawing or close-up photo of a 109, the cross is painted over 2 segments, not 1!

6) The Cou de Grace, there is a vertical double-row of rivets to fasten the skin to..... what? On the real thing, the rivets are along either vertical edge of a segment to fasten it to its neighboring segments. The rivet pattern on this suspect piece looks completely bogus.


If this information is erroneous in some way, please correct it.
Otherwise, I hope no-one gets taken by this fraudster.



Ray

[HELLDIVERS]

THATS IS AS FAKE AS IVE EVER SEEN!! LOOKS LIKE THE RIVETS WERE INSTALL WITH A CLAW HAMMER!! BUYER BEWARE!!!! I HOPE THE PAINT IS DRY BEFORE IT SHIPS !! THANKS MIKE

[Mark_Pilkington]

I love the indication of nervousness shown by the seller in his "Keep Me out of Jail" clause at the bottom:

DISCLAIMER: I AM UNABLE TO AUTHENTICATE THE ORIGIN OF THIS PIECE. I CAN ONLY GO BY WHAT WAS TOLD TO ME, THROUGH THE SINCERITY OF THE FAMILY MEMBERS AT THE ESTATE SALE. AS SUCH THIS ITEM IS BEING SOLD IN "AS IS CONDITION". PLEASE BID ONLY IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS BIDDER! THANK YOU.

regards

Mark Pilkington

[tom d. friedman]

all valid points...... fake as can be. look at the bullet shot pattern, should look like a buzz saw went through it, if it is real it was shot at by a ground pounder with a small caliber gun, not .30 or .50 cal ammo & definetely not 20mm cannon. another example of the crooks who are taking advantage of the naive. i'll get the sheet metal, i'll paint the cross, shoot it repeatedly & i'll give you the same phoney example at the bargain price of 50 bucks. any takers??? mr ebay seller here is my bid...... regards, tom

[Chris Brame]

My favorite line:

"This rare piece is made of metal and or aluminum"

[Mark_Pilkington]

Examining the sellers other sales of collectables I was taken by the quality of the other items and it seems this may indeed be a case of the seller being mislead by others?

I brought the concerns of autheticity to the seller in ebay and received the following reply:

Hello..pilko_aust. Thank you for your info. It's NEVER my intent to EVER deceive any buyers on Ebay. I can only go by what info was told to me by the relatives of the former owner of this piece. I live 25 miles from the Cavanaugh Flight Museum. I will bring this item to the museum for their inspection on Monday and try to have them verify it. I'll then either cancel the listing and or adjust the listing accordingly. bordi20

so perhaps the "veteran's family" are the source of an apparant fraud? or miss information - (or perhaps it is genuine?? ??? NOT??)

regards

Mark Pilkington

[Elwyn]

Reminds me of one of those imatation aircraft artifacts you see for sale in the mags. Usually they are recreatons of nose art though. There's always one or two booths selling them at Oshkosh.

[Mark_Pilkington]

Reproduction nose artwork, resin joysticks etc are all fine and reasonable for desk or wall ornaments, and should attract a fair price for effort of manufacture, but geniune heritage collectables and prices paid for them deserve authenticity.

[AndyG]

Pop rivets.....

Did they have pop rivets in 1940? Would there be chromate behind the longeron which may never have been attached to the cosmetic rivets?

Do those 'Bullet' hole slook to be from weapon with a high enough velocity?

[TimAPNY]

There is a Bf-109F in Canada that was shot down in Russia, it was recovered and restored for display, BUT none of the Bullet holes in the a/c were patched. I thought this was pretty cool. So I took several shots of the areas that have the holes. See below. I think I was suprised at how random they were and how few. But it makes sense if you really think about it.


http://community.webshots.com/photo/395 ... 475JETThn#

I would not pay a dime for that panel.

[Randy Haskin]

I think I was suprised at how random they were and how few. But it makes sense if you really think about it.

As I tell my students, air-to-air gunnery isn't accomplished with a sniper rifle, but with a chainsaw.

Given the many aiming errors in aircraft guns (installation error, aircraft pitch/yaw and vibration in flight, gun vibration and recoil while firing, boresight error in the gunsight), it's a wonder that any bullets hit anything!

In the F-15 and F-16 the M61 20mm cannon, which has some very gee-whiz high-tech methods of compensating for all those errors, even has a 4-5 mil (miliradian) dispersion pattern. That means at 1,000 feet slant range to the target (if the gun was harmonized/aimed at that distance) 80% of the bullets would go through a hole 4-5 feet in diameter.

Think about that.

80% of the bullets through a 5-foot diameter circle just 1,000 feet in front of the jet.

At the distance where jet guns are aimed (typically 2,250' to 2,500' in front of the jet) that hole is more than twice as large; 11 to 12 feet in diameter. And 20% of the bullets are hitting outside that circle.

So if you consider that in WW2, they were shooting with basically iron sights (even the gyro sights were pretty low-tech compared to current radar-ranged and geometry-compensated gunsights) it's a wonder they hit *anything*!

That's why Erich Hartmann's advice of waiting to shoot until the enemy fills your entire windscreen is a good bit of advice from a gunery standpoint (but a VERY POOR bit of advice for every other aspect of dogfighting!!).

[Broken-Wrench]

! I HOPE THE PAINT IS DRY BEFORE IT SHIPS !! THANKS MIKE

That's funny! What were the rivets istalled for? They arn't holding anything together!

[FG1D Pilot]

I don't know if it was the seller or the buyer, but that part was brought to me this week for authentication. It's worse than it looks in the picture. The bends are make by hand probably around a knee as they are not straight or even. I have never seen the rivits used. As luck would have it, a couple of Luftanza pilots were visiting at the time and they got a good laugh over it. I could make out " Americana Zinc Chromate" in the German they were speaking. I had the owner go look at our 109. to see how the patterns and bends were.

[Jack Cook]

I had the owner go look at our 109. to see how the patterns and bends were.

Do you now have any parts missing of your now?

[FG1D Pilot]

Good point I better go look.