Real or Fake? Magee & George Cart. Box

MOBDEnut

Corporal
Joined
Apr 24, 2017
Ok real or fake? I am questioning this box due to the box plate attached. It is supposed to be a Magee & George made box. Thoughts?
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Its very hard to tell from photos especially with no photo of the back of the plate. Without holding it in my had so I can touchie feelie smell it and yes lick it I'm going to reserve any judgement on real or fake. The one thing I do know is that Magee & George did NOT make a cartridge box plate.
 
It looks well worn but, I'm always a bit suspicious when there is too much identification.
 
I wish I had a better look at the stamp, plus the strap looks to be machine sewn with close stitching, like modern machines would produce.
 
It looks well worn but, I'm always a bit suspicious when there is too much identification.

I agree. Another tell tell sign is there is NO one by that last name in the 7th Ark. Inf
 
I think it's an old reenactor item, maybe having passed through multiple hands and its provenance lost. I see no listing for a Parkin or Rarkin in the Seventh Arkansas.

ETA: I suspect there are quite few beat up, worn reenactor kit items that are offered in good faith as original CW pieces by sellers who don't know otherwise. Caveat emptor, y'all.
 
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I can't comment on the pouch but the plate looks more like one of the many thousands of plates made during the centennial of the war. It is my understanding is that the small ring inside the large outside oval ring came from them just copying a US buckle and changing the letters.
 
I don't think it's period. I'm put off by the misspelling of Arkansas. It's too prominent, right out there, spaced evenly. It just screams overdone. Many of the marked items that I have seen are much more discreet in their marking: on the back, smaller, abbreviated, etc. Arkansas had only been a state for 25 years. I sense that a soldier proud enough of his state would either abbreviate or spell it correctly. I think it's a vintage reenacting piece.
 
Fake, fake, fake or a reenactment piece. I have an identical reproduction in brown leather. The give away for me is the brass rivet attaching the finial strap. Correction what I thought was a brass rivet was the hole in the finial strap.

I still believe it to be a re-enactor's piece enhanced a bit.
 
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For what it is worth I saw an almost identical in a shop today. I would have asked a lot of questions but the clerk was about three degrees from comatose so I didn't waste y time.
 
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