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My Fake Mills Bomb base plugs!

I dont think they ever will Dave, in particular the WW1 plugs as they cant get the correct typeface for them. To try and do it by hand, well, will make them look even worse.
Also, a lot are being copied in metal from molds of original plugs, dents n all and if the right metal is being used then these may be the ones to cause problems for collectors in the future, especially if they are not marked in any way. I think these plugs should be marked in some way as repros. I know of one producer who does this but the other dosnt. I have a couple of these and they are so good that if it wasnt for the mark i could not tell them from an original. Just need to age a bit naturally and in a few years, well, you can guess what could happen.
Here is a piccy of a couple of lead antimony repro No 5 plugs, they are crackers, made from the very same stuff as the original. Both have a mark on the back, otherwise you just cant tell.

Andy
 

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Perhaps it is time for a definitive work on baseplugs, before these reproductions contaminate the field too much. I am reminded of the No12/No44 fakes that were made several years ago; they were short on the engineering finess of some of these reproduction baseplugs. No doubt the forgers, assisted by new technology, are at work on bigger things!
 
Bonnex said:
Perhaps it is time for a definitive work on baseplugs, before these reproductions contaminate the field too much. I am reminded of the No12/No44 fakes that were made several years ago; they were short on the engineering finess of some of these reproduction baseplugs. No doubt the forgers, assisted by new technology, are at work on bigger things!
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Perhaps a good start would be for one of the base plug experts on the forum to start an album that was just dedicated to base plugs - real and fake?
Dave.
 
There are some dodgy looking base plugs on ebay at present. Including one lead antimony No 5 dated 1918! Real No5's stopped in January 1917!

John
 
That's well observed Tom. I was going on the description. I do tend to think many of these lead antimony plugs are suspect anyway. Easy to mould, many seem to have very indestinct markings and suspiciously good threads for something softer than brass, iron mazak etc. Most seem to originate from one French seller on the Somme too. I'm suspicious of some of this other plugs too.

John
 
Hi John,

hope you are excluding my lead plugs John? [lol].

All i have had have been kosher, very hard to reproduce the lead oxide on the outside but be shiny metal on the inside where they have been in an airtight situation, tightly screwed onto the gren. They all came from a far better source than the guy you mentioned and most had bits of gren attached, too hard to fake and took some getting off i can tell you.
Hope alls well bud, must have another beer sometime too.

Andy
 
Hi Andy. Yours are above reproach. As you say the ones you have still have traces of contact with a grenade body. Most of those I've seen sold on the Somme are too clean and too anonymous.

Yes all's well here, hope the snow wasn't too terrible for you recently. We are going on holiday for a couple of weeks soon as we've not had any time off since opening the shop. Just got in from doing the Chatham Military fair today too. Knackered now!

John
 
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