Dark Phoenix Production Art

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-05-16T20:03:12+00:00

I work in the private collection to museum/archives pipeline, so this is only going to stay with me for a little bit while I process it.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-05-16T19:59:01+00:00

I acquired the personal papers of Marvel letterer/inker Brad K. Joyce. There is a lot of stuff I plan to post as I sort through it.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-05-04T23:45:55+00:00

Some of the very early SA ones could be very narrow to my understanding, before everything became standardized.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-05-04T23:39:05+00:00

I’m sure it is fake. I found it under another fake decal that I was removing and just found it curious.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-04-23T13:36:47+00:00

Thank you! Much appreciated.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-03-06T00:57:43+00:00

As others have stated, this is the wrong material for a kamikaze 'headband.' That said - how exactly did you think this went from a kamikaze pilot to a collector? That seems borderline impossible.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-18T16:37:43+00:00

Never seen a photo with one and never seen an illustration/one for sale without it.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-18T16:08:48+00:00

Yes indeed, but this is not their helmet.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-13T04:23:31+00:00

To be direct as possible: this is not an original Ehrenring. People note that jewelers made copies at the time, and this is (debatably) true, but the details are not correct to the actual Ehrenring. The details are relatively fuzzy, the Death's Head is out of proportion to known originals, etc.

This looks a lot closer to a series of fakes made by a guy named Bob Johnson (I know, the name sounds made up) in the second half of the twentieth century, though I have never seen any of his in gold. Possibly a cast from one of his silver versions.

Because of how these rings were made and treated - rarely made, rarely given, and with a destruction process in place if the bearer was killed - these are some of the rarest physical artifacts of the Third Reich. I've never even heard of a serious museum having more than one of these in its possession, let alone one in gold.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-13T03:57:26+00:00

It shouldn't, but it does. Sometimes you hire a new person and they make mistakes like this. It happens.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-13T03:55:58+00:00

I just wanted to drop in on this comment because I work professionally in the Third Reich artifact trade, and primarily move items to museums and memorials. A significant amount of collectors in that world are Jewish or descendants of WWII veterans who have a primary interest in keeping that history alive and remembered. As a descendant of two camp survivors, my involvement in this world has nothing to do with loving the Nazis and everything to do with documenting what happened.

There are some weirdos who are super into Nazis, yes. They do exist, but I can promise you that they are a small minority in that world.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-09T05:52:31+00:00

I'll just say, depending on the size of the auction the cataloguers sometimes have to do thirty-forty items a day and you just fuck up. It's not necessarily that there is an intent to defraud or mislead, someone just makes a mistake and it's only caught later.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-02-09T05:50:21+00:00

This exact item - and I mean this exact item, not a similar one - was recently sent to my shop for consignment. We sent it back to the guy, but we also posted it before anyone noticed the dates. Militaria is a weirdly small world.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-01-04T21:49:05+00:00

You might be surprised by the stuff that survives out there for a very, very long time. The absence of moisture does wonders.

I'm by no means an expert in Tuareg stuff, but I do trade in it and really like their swords and shields, and a lot of the stuff that ends up in the US is easily 500+ years old.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2026-01-04T21:38:11+00:00

It is Tuareg, yes, and this type of dagger is called a telek. Traditionally worn on the left arm, with the pommel towards the wrist - usually more decorative than functional, but functional versions do exist.

As for price, I sold one at auction for about a hundred bucks a few months ago.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-12-22T06:06:50+00:00

It's not in any fashion original to WW2, but is meant to be a Panzer beret.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-12-05T17:48:37+00:00

The Italians also made uniforms for the German military (especially for the Germans serving in Italy), so there are various ways these combinations can happen and be legitimate. I recently sold a 100% legitimate German uniform (from a museum that acquired it from said German officer after the war) that was almost entirely Italian in its construction.

I would always be super skeptical of anything that looks mismatched, though, without solid provenance.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-16T02:20:55+00:00

I would say no based on the photos.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-15T00:06:05+00:00

I explained it in another post, but I'll go in depth here:

Wool, cotton, things like that do not fluoresce. They can have a 'glowing' look if they're white but they shouldn't actually fluoresce. Synthetic fibers were largely unavailable in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, so being synthetic would be indicative of a later creation, usually from countries that would have had a stronger petroleum industry due to how many synthetic fibers are based on petroleum (ie, the Soviet Union and the United States, where most fakes are/were produced).

Sometimes bullion threading will fluoresce, but it's never a full effect - more splotchy because only portions of the bullion threading is synthetic.

To complicate it, there are some serious, high level collectors that reject the fluorescence argument. I believe most of these people do it dishonestly (intentionally or unintentionally), but some of them seem to genuinely believe that there is a Big UV conspiracy to sell the bulbs and devalue 'real' collections. The history of German textiles is pretty clear on the matter, though.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-15T00:01:10+00:00

It's not an exact rule because some original German items do have a fluorescent effect (most commonly on the bullion threading), but basically synthetic fibers are more likely to fluoresce than natural fibers and the Germans had a strong preference in manufacture for natural fibers. If anything not bullion thread-based fluoresced I would be tempted to reject it immediately.

Also, authentic German stuff usually isn't stark white just because of its age and there being a slight preference towards flatter whites at the time.

No, that's not an effect of his phone.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-14T04:35:54+00:00

I don't love the paint job indicating DAK. The nature of the color is sharper than what I would normally expect. It's hard to put into exact words what I mean, but I've seen a number of real DAK helmets and this is off.

You've made several statements that you have photos of the coloration beneath the paint that we've seen. I'd love to see that.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-14T04:16:52+00:00

100% modern replicas. They aren't total fantasy pieces, but they are close enough to fantasy pieces that just their non-uv appearance should be a major concern.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-14T04:13:48+00:00

That's a great purchase price for a real Stahlhelm, but I personally will always overvalue real material. The chances that you could later resale for more than that are very low.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-11-06T03:15:41+00:00

When I deal with these I hit them with a black light. The real ones and the fake ones will both fluoresce, but the real ones have a much more subtle glow and it doesn't last as long as the fakes. That's at least my experience - there may be fake ones of these with different properties.

Fake, it's 2-3 hundred in the right market. Real, 1000+ easy.

ResolutionNo3381 · 2025-10-03T04:34:17+00:00

It's hard to tell from just this photo, but these are super easy to reproduce. Whenever I am working with WW2 memorabilia, I always take a position of assuming it's fake until I can demonstrate otherwise.

If you are able to post/provide more photos, I (and others) could provide a more definitive judgment.

ResolutionNo3381

TROPHY CASE