A recent post on the Historic Aviation forum alerted me to the fact that the trade in fake Dambuster material is still going on. The item was posted by someone called Whitley Project who was rightly sceptical:
A friend of mine says he has been offered Guy Gibson’s mess tankard/mug – apparently with his name on it. He then went on to tell me he has also been offered Guy Gibson’s dogs bowl, which apparently has the dogs name on it too. This made my antennae twitch somewhat, but he is adamant these are genuine items coming from a reputable source. He told me they originated from the defunct Dambuster’s Museum at RAF Scampton.
The first item sounds very like the tankard on this list which we published in 2015. These were the items sold to a collector by a company in Louth, Lincolnshire, called Military Trader UK which is run by Mr Tony Flitter and his son Mr Nigel Flitter. The company has a website called http://www.militarytrader.co.uk and is a regular seller on Ebay.
The collector purchased a number of items from Military Trader UK which purported to be objects owned or used by various members of 617 Squadron during the war. Sadly, it turned out that although these were genuine wartime items, they had been “enhanced” in various ways, with handwriting or typed labels which supposedly added provenance.
After being threatened with litigation, Military Trader UK eventually returned the collector’s money, and paid his legal and professional fees. This came to a total of about £17,000. The list of items included:
- Guy Gibson’s Cap
- Jack Buckley’s Cap
- Guy Gibson’s Tankard
- RAF Strata Scope
- RAF Scampton Microphone
- Brian Goodale’s Cap
- Guy Gibson’s Escape Axe
- Guy Gibson’s Mag Glass
- RAF 617 Bomb Counter
- RAF 617 Signalling Lamp
- RAF Scampton Phone
- RAF 617 Headphones
- Flying Boots apparently belonging to Ivan Whittaker
- RAF Veteran Tie
- Jack Buckley’s Bible
- RAF Visibility Meter
- RAF Playing Cards
- Numerous pieces of wreckage & artifacts
- AM Visibility Meter
- RAF Flag
- Tunic apparently belonging to Sidney Hobday
- Guy Gibson’s Pilot Book
The reappearance of a “Guy Gibson tankard” suggests that some of these items may be back on the market. Once more, we issue the warning for anyone considering purchasing an item which claims to have a connection to a man who was involved in the Dams Raid: “buyer beware”.
Dambusters Blog 
Reblogged this on tesseractorion.
They are still trying to peddle their fantasy items .. At least by the sound of the thread people are still looking out for the rubbish that they peddle . Their forum is now defunct as well.
It says three reply’s, I can only see two ?