Fake Wake Island Bar

The Wake Island Bar is found on the Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Medals and was awarded to those who were part of the desperate defense of Wake Island during WWII. It is a very rare and expensive bar. Illustrated below is one of the common fakes. If you are thinking about buying one of these rare bars save this and compare before you buy. Note that on the fake the rope border segments are not of equal size along the bottom. The letters in the word “WAKE” on the fake are perfectly aligned. On the genuine bars all the rope segments are of equal size and the letter “E” in “WAKE” looks like it is starting to fall off. The horizontal part of the letter “L” in “ISLAND” is much longer on the fake than on the genuine version. It is kind of strange that while the lettering on the fakes is too good to be true the rope border is not good enough to be true. Good pictures of a genuine bar can be found in The Call Of Duty book by Strandberg and Bender.