There are so many of these fake KGB dosc on eBay at the moment that one starts to wander whether there is some sort of a factory in Russia or Baltics that produces these docs in huge quantities.
What's the legal aspect of faking the docs - is such activity against the laws of Russian Federation?
In my mind there are two "factories" although for all I know they are probably kitchen operations.
One is definitely in Ukraine, the other might be as well. The Ukraine one produces most of the known types. It has a least three, and likely more, "authors" as I have detected at least that many different handwrittings. The second produces the very "messy" SMERSH documents and a few other types.
As for laws. There is no law against making documents for non-existant organizations. There is currently no OGPU, no NKVD, no NKGB, no MGB, no Soviet MVD, etc. I think there may be some laws covering the KGB despite the fact that it no longer exists. This would help to explain why there are no good KGB fakes at all, just the blank bad ones.
The real crime comes with misrepresentation. It is a crime or an offence to misrepresent anything you sell. But, this is hard to enforce. We have to prove it was fake, the selle knew that and be in a jurisdicton where it can be enforced.
Perhaps letters of complaint to E would help though.
What I am getting from your post is that it's completely legal to manufacture these fakes (if someone else does the distribution).
It's scary.
I wanted to buy couple of similar docs for my collection, but with so many fakes and my limited experience with the docs - I think I will be staying away from them.
thanks Shawn, so we must consider the occurence of two identical photos of the bearer as an exception.
William, my opinion about these docs is simple, due mainly to my lack of knowledge about this stuff: I'd buy at a known dealer, and in my mind, I know only 2 or 3 in the USA. I don't want to make publicity, maybe I repeat common words, and one can consider me as too severe, but I learned an excellent US expression here: my (little bunch of ) money is a terrible thing to waste!
one last question Shawn: a friend brought last year from Poland (and from ukraine or else) little NKVD ID, mainly train personnel, 1941-1942. These were 2 or 3 little rectangular ID, with red diagonal in the texts. I did'nt do anything, but with others we decided to consider the stamps ( 1cm dia approx, red), as a proof of quality if it were very fine and deeply applied (you can feel the relief with fingers). What is your opinion ? (sorry not showing more details)
Sebastien
"a spectre haunts Europe, the spectre of communism"
(a well-known german bearbed)
Alexei's two ids with the same photos came from a huge lot of hundreeds of items belonging to the same guy.
As for the fakes I have posted, they are 100% fakes and were offered to me at $15 a piece, though I believe they can be purchased for less. They are being printed by the thousands in the Ukraine.
Unfortunately, Soviet IDs are a very bad scene these days!! If I sound bitter, consider that I lost about $450 in fakes before I learned.
I would be cautious even with repected dealers. Not that they would try to cheat you - that is why we considered them respected dealers. But that there are so many good looking fakes and so little reference info about IDs that I a sure even some good dealers have had a few fakes pass through their hands. At least when dealing with a reutable dealer you can usually get a good return policy.
I (I should say we because have had lots of help) are only posting info about what we know are fakes here. Let me be clear, when I say that all of the BD series of SMERSH docs are fake (or other ones I ID above) I mean ALL. ot a chance that they ae fake, but they are 100% fake. So first clue is to see if it matches a known faked type.
There may be other fake IDs out there that we have yet to identify so always apply the general tips posted way above as well as looking for specific types.
As for the stamps, well there are two problems. Many use fake stamps (or at least poorly made fake rubber stamps) these are relatively easy to tell if you have seen genuine stamps. They have little detail and are blurry in places. This has nothing to do with whether it is a hard or soft strike. I good stamp can be very faint but full of detail.
However, fakes some use good quality stamps. I don't know for sure if they use genuine stolen stamps or if they just have better quality faked stamps. On the fake KGB award badge docs, which have blank issue dates, the stamp is usually quite crisp and actually bites into the paper somewhat.
Happilly, don't know of any faked train personnel stamps (yet).
