# Harley head badge



## chitown (Sep 17, 2011)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HARLEY-DAVI...me=WDVW&rd=1&ih=010&category=420&cmd=ViewItem

YIKES! $371

repop? or real?


----------



## Nickinator (Sep 17, 2011)

chitown said:


> http://www.ebay.com/itm/HARLEY-DAVI...me=WDVW&rd=1&ih=010&category=420&cmd=ViewItem
> 
> YIKES! $371
> 
> repop? or real?



 Looks fake


----------



## Rust_Trader (Sep 17, 2011)

*Real*



Nickinator said:


> Looks fake




This is the real deal!


----------



## Talewinds (Sep 17, 2011)

Nickinator said:


> Looks fake




 What elements of the badge lead you to believe that it's been falsified?


----------



## Nickinator (Sep 17, 2011)

Talewinds said:


> What elements of the badge lead you to believe that it's been falsified?




Its to thick, and the inside ridge is to thin.


----------



## osmetix (Sep 17, 2011)

*????????????*

man it looks real, is it stamped or casted. with the high dollar these things bring im starting to believe people will go through great efforts to pepop these badges. the dead give away a year ago was that the backs are smooth. thats because it is almost impossable to make a wax mold and cast it, way to thin. yet if you are a jeweler and are able to volcanize a mold, do a wax injecton, investment mold and then do a centrifugal casting it is possible. this costs a lot of cash. but if you are a jeweler and a bike collector, well you get where im going. 
 here is what scares me about this, look at the front of the badge in the last picture. see all the little bubble like objects around the edges of the accent bands? they almost look like dirt. just so we are on the same page the outter edge of the badge has a band or accent all around it and the inner circle has the same band/accent. well those bubbles look like actual bubbles of copper left behind from the casting. see what happens is when you do an investment casting you have to pressurize your casting material when it is wet, so you can get all of the air bubbles out of the mix before it goes into a drying period. this person could have left out the cleaning process of the wax, which would prevent the attraction air bubbles. or they did not pressurize the mix long enough pulling out tghe air bubbles. so when the casting dries there are little bubbles attached to the wax of the headbadge. now when you burn the wax out of the casting in the kiln those bubles become voids just like the casting where the wax badge burns out. see, so when you melt the moltin hot metal in the crucible and spin it, all that metal fills the void and leaves your headbadge, hence filling all those little bubbles left behind in the mold from improperly prepping the wax. wax is like plastic, it likes to collect air when water is involved. 
 now you have a headbage with rough little metal imperfections left behind, no original would have that. copper originals are stamped, leaving a pertect finish. another way to tell is if you tried to bend it. casted copper is a harded metal because it maintains is itegrity when poured. so if you bent that it would react by creasing. pardon the pun, but those with integrity never bend. creasing comes from metal that doesnt want to bend because it wants to maintain its original state.  so when you go to bend it back it will leave a crease. now a original is stamped and is the complete opposite. when it is stamped it becomes flattened and pulled out of its original state. it tends to bend alot easier. you can actually bend it back into shape if the initial bend is within reason. part of me wants to believe it is real because it is so rare. but i have seen 4 of these pop up in the last year on ebay. before that, i have had never seen a 1 come up for auction. 
 i just went back and studied the pictures again. it looks like the mold didnt pull all the detail off of the original. notice all the areas where there is no detail at all on the badge. i have 2 originals and either one of them has that. i wish i could weigh it. i will weight my original 2marrow and see what i get.
 the seller also has a flying merkle headbadge, it even has other tell tale signs. it looks like the wax was dirty when casted creating the opposite. leaving behind a bunch of pits in the finished casting.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLYING-MERK...747?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb7c6d8b3


----------



## jpromo (Sep 18, 2011)

Wow, I see exactly what you're saying with both of them. The Merkel looks full of bubbles which would not come from stamping. The detail fades could be from nearly 100 years of life but a headbadge isn't something that gets rubbed much.


----------



## chitown (Sep 18, 2011)

The "bubbles" are what sent up the red flags for me.

osmetix: Thanks for the detailed explanation of the casting process!


----------



## osmetix (Sep 18, 2011)

i contacted the seller asking if he would guarantee it to be 100% original. that was 2 days ago. so i bidded on the item just for poops and giggles. he contacted me after my bid cautioning me that he cant guarantee the badge as original. then went on to say that if i won it there would be not returns accepted. now that sounds shaddy to me. he claims he is selling off his headbadges that have doubles and that this one is like his other one. its fake, just from the response i got from him tells me enough. so that means the poor guy who won it has a fake thinking it is original, paying 444.44 bucks, which is what one would pay for a original. toyman$ has been on ebay for awhile with a 100% feedback, im surprised he mislead a buyer like that.


----------

