Fake Williams & Anderson California Highway Patrol (CHP) badges
Hiya Everyone,
As a badge collector for many years, I have come accross many fake badges, especially coming out from Europe. The most common ones are currently on eBay and these are CHP badges.
I have many police and Federal badges available to trade please contact me if you have any requests
Buyers beware – there are FAKE Williams & Anderson California Highway Patrol (CHP) badges being offered but they are easy to spot as the real ones (albeit rejected by CHP) have riveted rank panels and state “14K 1/10 GF” on the back – the fakes are much poorer quality and do not have that on the back.
Most collectors are very familiar with the modern CHP ranks and their badges; but many counterfeit badges, some with ranks and titles that never existed, are often sold and traded as genuine. In 1989, Williams & Anderson (“W&A” hallmark) of Providence, Rhode Island tendered to manufacture a total of 210 badges for the CHP. The first batch, which included numbers 13043 through 13143, except 13077 and 13109 – all with the rank of Traffic Officer, was received by Headquarters and immediately rejected – the badges were actually the wrong shape! The “valleys” between the star points were not deep enough, giving the badges sort of a “fat” appearance.
The flawed badges were returned to Williams & Anderson and no W&A badge has ever been issued or worn by a CHP officer, although some collectors mistakenly believe that they were. In March of 1990, the tender went into default and not long after that, Williams & Anderson went bankrupt. Unfortunately the flawed badges found their way into collections and even worse, the flawed badge dies were purchased by a so-called badge “dealer” who ever since has turned out hundreds of fake CHP badges – some of these have impossibly high or impossibly low numbers.
At first, some attempt was made to make the badges appear genuine (in spite of the shape problem) but later, they were made with ranks that never even existed – like Corporal, Major, Colonel, SWAT, Pilot, K-9, etc. Fake California State Police badges have also been made on W&A dies, some with the rank of Traffic Officer, which was strictly a California Highway Patrol rank. Even fake hat badges for the CHP and CSP can be found with the W&A hallmark on them – they are generally of very poor quality.
Hope this helps
