This Kelly Hicks "interview" answer is a typical fabrication on the level of a Hillary Clinton explanation of Benghazi or email server, engineered to obfuscate the truth or facts and attempt to separate Hicks from his active role in the XRFacts hoax. It needs a line by line fact check review with commentary.
NOTE: Below is my critique of the XRF answer that I posted on the USMF, I have been informed by the editor, that M/T will publish my reproof in the next issue. If you guys have a critique to the C/SS rune debacle, I suggest you write to the editor, he appears to want to have both sides heard
In the October 2016 issue of Military Trader magazine, Third Reich(TR) helmet collector, author and authority Kelly Hicks, answered some tough questions about some recent events occurring within the TR helmet collecting community. While most of the interview delves deeply into TR helmets, specifically SS helmets, there was one question that was asked, which in the recent past, negatively affected those of us in the US helmet collecting community. This was the subject of X-ray Florescence(XRF) and a now defunct helmet authentication service referred to as: XRFacts.
Let me be clear, I have no personal issues with Mr. Hicks and outside of a few chance meetings with him at some of the OVMS Show of Shows in Louisville in which I spoke with him at his table or when he was promoting XRFacts several years ago, I really do not know him well. So, this is not a personal attack in any way and I am sure that he and I have much more in common than what divides us. However, I feel it is vitally necessary to address some very clear mistakes he made in answering one specific question.
All my critiques of his answer are in
RED.
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Military Trader: X-ray florescence(XRF) seemed to be a revolutionary advancement in the hobby, but then fell from favor as fast as it appeared. Can you tell us about the process and do you still use it today in authenticating helmets?
Kelly Hicks: I appreciate the question. Essentially, I no longer use XRF as one of my authentication methods, although it was exciting to work with. I, and many others are fans of this technology, which is widely used by museums and universities throughout the world for forensic analysis of inorganic materials from stone to oil paints to porcelain to metals.
(While this is true to a point, it is not true when speaking about helmets. XRF can confirm general time periods of things which are hundreds and thousands of years old, it becomes less accurate when we are talking about mere decades. Especially when used on painted insignia found on U.S. helmets in which the composition of the paint used in the 40’s is still available or easily made today)
While it showed great promise, especially in my main focus; The absolute determination of the material composition of helmet decals, there had been a growth of opposition to the practice among certain members of the community
(Since Mr. Hicks “main focus” is TR helmets, when XRFacts decided to cross into an area out of his expertise, specifically the U.S. helmet collecting community, XRFacts made huge mistakes. This was later admitted to by the tech guy for XRFacts, David May.)
There is a long story to my involvement in XRF, but I will skip the drama and be concise. My role had not been on the technical end. Rather, it was as the final inspector of the helmets for a visual hands-on, to ensure the machines verdict was understood and in line with visual expectations of decal characteristics.
(To me this is a confusing statement in that the final determination of the authenticity of a helmet, came back to a visual inspection based once again on experience and opinion in order to make sure that the machine wasn’t wrong? This contradicts XRFacts slogan: Provenance Through Science)
We had trained technicians who knew how to interpret the data from the helmet scans, analyzing the data and compare measuring with a growing database
(The data base needed for U.S. helmets to make XRF remotely accurate was in the tens of thousands of helmet comparatives not about 100. This is not science at this point, this wishful thinking. The result was legit U.S. helmets were found to be fake and fake helmets were given a COA) ….of original data scans from the best known examples.
(These known examples which he is speaking of are those helmets which were already inspected by human eyes and determined to be legit but, what if the human inspection was incorrect? It would then flaw the database, which is exactly what happened with the U.S. helmet side of XRF)
The brief history of XRF is a disappointing one. As we all know, social media can be very political and agenda-driven. Over time, a negative narrative
(Blaming politics and personal agendas is a way to blame others. And a negative narrative is not necessarily a wrong thing when it is in conjunction with something that is not working) ….about XRF had been carefully crafted and repeated;
(carefully researched responses would be a more proper answer here. “Crafted” implies a twisting of words to discredit XRF, this was not the case as U.S. helmets collectors actually had people who work with XRF themselves and proven the inconsistencies with this technology for use in the U.S. collecting community.) ….to the extent that reasonable collectors questioned its merits as a dependable authentication method.
(Questioning its merits is exactly what we should have done. We relied on reasonable collectors who didn’t automatically endorse something just because it was touted as the answer we’ve all been looking to find for vetting out fakes) Many were reluctant to express positiveness(sic) about it publicly because of fear of rejection and criticism on social media.
(Lets be honest here, the social media mentioned here was Militaria forums and quite the opposite was true, those who questioned the validity of XRF were shut down on many forums and their posts questioning XRF or debating its merits were removed) ….Moreover, we discovered that one of our team(under an alias)
(David May aka; cherrypoint; aka; maui and also the tech guy behind the whole XRFact enterprise) ….argued about it on social media, causing damage and further fanning the flames. Recognizing this, and due to the growing backlash, the expense of maintaining the equipment, and the untimely death of one of our key members and benefactors, we decided to stop the service.
(The untimely death was that of Robbie Wilson who ran the Wilson History and Research Center which focused on historical military helmets. I will not say anymore here about their benefactor since Mr. Wilson is unable to answer for himself)
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Let me conclude with this: What occurred on the TR side of Helmet Collecting can be handled by those in that collector community and I will not address the many other things that worked in conjunction with this such as the so-called Champagne runes. However, I felt it was very necessary that what happened on the U.S. side of this debate needed to be addressed after this article was published in which it appears that the blame for its failure is placed on the collectors who questioned this technology and not on those who tried to propagate and profit from it.
Finally, since I have used actual names here, I feel it is only fair to use mine here also. So, thanks for taking time to read this and I hope it clarifies things for those who collect U.S. Helmets
Scott Stevens(Bugme)
