Soviet Rail/Train Plaques.

[matteti]

Hello fellow members,
I recently bought a soviet railroad metal plaque (very similar to the one depicted here, but it is not the one). When I opened the box, I imediately noticed it was very different from another plaque I own and which I know is genuine. The new plaque seems to have "'air bubbles" in the metal, the surface is not smooth, but more rough, the writing is very blurry (instead of crisp) as well as the details that are not sharp at all. I get the feeling this is a low-quality cast-copy of a real plaque.

My question is, was there such "low-quality" plaques in used or this is definitely a fake done recently to deceive?

I am sorry not to have a pic at the moment. I will get some and post them on the forum tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for your comments!

[Lapa]

These are faked, and the fakes are today more plentiful than the originals :mad

Marc

[matteti]

Thanks Marc!

I got a case opened with Ebay and they offer to reimburse me if I return the item to seller with a tracking number. The seller is not accepting return and/or refund but Ebay's buyers protection has me covered. So, the plaque will go back.

At least I have one real plaque I got from a man in the US that also sold many such plaques to our member friend Bryan and that will probably remain my only railroad plaque.

[matteti]

here are some photos of that plaque which I am pretty confident is fake. I am going to return it to seller even though he doesn't want to reimburse me. Ebay's policy requests me to send it back to receive some reimbursement from them. Before I ship it today, feel free to post some comments in case I was mistaken and it was a genuine item (can I dream?)

[matteti]

and more...

[Lapa]

Not a hint of a shadow of a doubt after such pictures :thumbsdown

Marc

[matteti]

That's sad that even pieces of metal like this are faked. Until I opened the package and saw this I never even suspected this couild happen. :thumbsdown

[Soviet]

Wow, that's sad! I didn't know they are copying these things. I thought there was plenty of these.

Here is a comparison with my plaque for future reference.

Hope you didn't pay too much for this plaque Étienne. :(

[matteti]

Hi Soviet,
This is not the plaque I received from the Colorado guy, but another one I bought after in E! Unfortunately, I paid as much as my other plaque, but the good news is that E! is going to reimburse me in full (probably less the shipping two ways). Next time, I will ask for higher resolution picture and look at the details to ensure they are clear and crisp. On my other plaque, we can clearly read the "Proletarian of all countries, unite!" in the language of each SSR.

[rocketscientist]

During my presence in Baikonur, I have seen these plaques on many train cars, and they were of different quality, depending on the luxury of the train. For instance wagons for transportation of freights were equipped with simpler and lower quality crests than passenger cars. The best example was the following, seen on the car escorting rockets to the launch pad.