For those legitimately involved in this business and hobby, this is particularly alarming. This trend is made even worse by the fact that collecting of items such as these help to preserve an important part of our nation’s history. As time goes on and these relics become even scarcer and as a result more valuable, the growing threat of fraud endangers those legitimate dealers and collectors intent on keeping the legacy of the American Civil War alive for future generations.

While the serious collection of artifacts used to be limited to a relatively small number of known dealers, the proliferation of on-line auctions that harbor frauds has made the situation worse and more difficult to control. By a combination of experience and proven research techniques, those of us who have know the field can usually spot a fake. However, even we can be fooled. A more serious problem is the novice collector who buys an item on line thinking it is authentic only to find out it is a reproduction. This turns-off that potential collector and hurts both the expansion of the hobby and expansion of the marketplace for legitimate material, and threatens to confuse and disrupt the critically important fields of research and preservation. Only by thwarting those who traffic in fake historical items can we help protect this nation’s tangible heritage.

There is a solution to this issue. The Hobby Protection Act (Public Law 93-167, 87 Stat. 868.15 U.S.C. 2101 et seq) currently deals with only political items and numismatics (coins).  It requires that all reproduction or imitation items must be clearly labeled as such. Expanding this current statute to include Civil War items would call attention to the issue. It would provide dealers as well as collectors some protection from those intent on making a quick illicit profit to the detriment of honest collectors and dealers.

CWDCA is promoting legislation to make this change.