Interesting decal for sure. I picked this at a Max show about 10 years ago. Was applied on a CKL 64…lot # was 45XX. This was an anomaly for sure, looking with or without a loop, it looked fine. But a decaled M42 with that high lot # ?

We took it home & blew up some pics of it, thought maybe just a "misprint" the way the swaz has a "shadow". On closer inspection…a "checkerboard" pattern of printing on the outlines of wings & swaz. Which is indicative of post 1945 printing methods, so I was told by a printer:D. Soooo. got stuck with a fake ?. Question is, if this is a repro decal…why have we not seen more of them ? One would think they would be "Out there" & identified but 10 years later, we have not seen another show it’s face. Could it be real, maybe late war depot or field applied ?

Any opinions ? It sure looks convincing

Click to enlarge the picture