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Harley Davidson Head Badge Controversy

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Both badges look like they were hand made and not by machine. The edges around the lettering are not smooth more like jagged.. that to me indicates copies. The brass badge holes appear to be slightly wider then the other badge next to it. I feel some one was a engraver and made the brass badge (gave it some patina) for a bike that had slightly wider spaced holes.



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The words in the cast badge, "MILWAUKEE, U.S.OF A.", are set in Helvetica, a font that was not published until 1957.

In my opinion.

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You mean not all San Serif fonts are exactly the same? ;) The width of the letters in the repro badge are wider than the Original as well. It's subtle to most, but it's screaming at me in the side by side comparison.
 
OK (while we are looking for the truth) here is a little story:
A guy had an early NOS b6 may have been Goodrich (At Doc Gibsons show in Costa mesa- long time ago) it had drop center wheels- the bike was nos- he could not sell it till he put nos s-2s on it.

So lets say that it is REAL- that is good for your own satisfaction but there would be doubt about it in many minds-you would probably have to put the earlier badge on it to realize maximum value (if that is your goal.)
2cents OPINION as always.
PS ditto on the post that it looks like it was aged on purpose.
 
Also look at the spacing of the "of" on the brass badge. Looks like this: OG :"U.S.ofA"
The brass "repop" "U.S. of A." If that makes any sense.
 
You mean not all San Serif fonts are exactly the same? ;) The width of the letters in the repro badge are wider than the Original as well. It's subtle to most, but it's screaming at me in the side by side comparison.

Helvetica and Arial seem to be in the same font family. They are what you look for when you want a clean looking sans serif logo or letter font. A more exotic version that is thicker is Zurich, which is available with many word processing suites and easy to add to for font cache.
 
You mean not all San Serif fonts are exactly the same? ;) The width of the letters in the repro badge are wider than the Original as well. It's subtle to most, but it's screaming at me in the side by side comparison.

All Designs, Typography and Orthography of early art, logos, badges and decals was hand lettered (no computers, Letraset, or digital typesets). Often artwork was drawn over-sized on illiustration board, then given to an engraver, who would transfer the design to scale with a pantograph tool, then with the skills of a jeweler cut the intricate design in an "investment casting" or lost-wax casting. It was then turn over to a metal worker or foundry for mass production - a steel die of the design was made pressing it while red hot it into a cavity for embossing.

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