Show us your militaria...

Thanks Carl, so you maanged to get an internet connexion after all§ I thought you were fighting General Santa Anna and would be back for at least a couple of days. Just a question : are these medals difficult to get in the U.S. or not? it took me a long time to get these in Europe.

 

Hi Skipper, heh heh, nope, no Santana (as they say it here) to worry about ;-)) As for the internet, im at my Sisters house using it since I don't go in untill a few weeks from now. Reason for that is because the Dr who was going to operate on me, has a family emergency and I now have a substitute Dr. I didn't find out about it until after I made the postings about going under the knife on July 30th. I go see this guy on Tues, then from there I have some sort of testing they have to do before I can have surgery.

On the medals. I don't know how hard it is to get bravery awards but, you can easily get campaign medals and such with ease. They have a law here that forbids the selling and buying of Medal of Honors. However, I don't know if that also covers the DCS/DFC, Navt Cross, Silver Star and such?

 

Yes I heard about the 2005 law concerning the M.O.D. for U.S. residents and/or citizens. I think it's just for the M.O.D. though. The guy who sold recalls here in Europe has the M.O.D and said he was not allowed and would not sell it to an American because of this law. This is probably why I rarely see it, I don't have it in my collection.
At the moment I am looking for British RAF WWII medals.
Sorry about mispelling the name of the General, I heard the name so often, but never saw it written. I'm Learning every day.

 

Your 1st piece(s) of militaria, & what got you "hooked".
Mine:


These were given to me by my uncle, a career USN man (ret. Capt.) roughly 35 years ago at Christmas when he was home on leave. I've always cherished these & they have sown the seeds for a lifelong fascination with the hobby.

Over the years i've been given other items that were handed down through the family that are more meaningful, but these 2 started it all.

Anyone out there have your 1st's? What broke your "cherry"? Post pic's & tell us about them.

 

Well This is My actual issue stuff in a shadow box My nephew made for me in his 9th grade woodshop class. Before that it sat in a shoe box on my shelf or on my uniforms when needed which wasnt much, This isnt got all my campign medals I gotta add my unit xrests and My war on terror Campaign medals and My gold majors oak leafs. Got most of this stuff for underwater basket weaving competitions in the 4-H. lol

 

mortman: Wonderful, they look really great in a nice frame. When I have time I should really take car of the presentation of my own collection too.

Colt: The two patches are nice too. No wonder you got hooked with such a nice present. My first piece of militaria was a yellow silk hankerchief made out of a piece of WWII parachute by a Belgian civilian.

 

hi motman
all as i can is .wow. very nice thankyou for showing us your goodies
cheers krieg

 

Awesome display Mortman. Must be proud to look at them and recollect your accomplishments.

Skipper, that sounds pretty cool & quite unique. Do you still have that 'kerchief?

 

I have some more of my collection to show! i just recently got a shadow box to put these in, and trust me i tried to fit all of the little things i had in there; it didnt work out. These are just mostly my patches I've collected.


Left to Right
top row:11th Airborne Division(WWII), USS Thuban Tab (Vietnam), Vietnam Boot Camp 1(mens), Vietnam Boot Camp 1 (Ladys), with Honarable Discharge Pin At Bottom

Bottom Row: 101st Airborne Division (Unissued), National Defense Service Ribbon(Vietnam), U.S.S. Thuban Gunnery Deck (Vietnam), National Defense Service Medal(Vietnam), Navy Seaman (Vietnam)

 

Hi Skipper, you didn't misspel his name-it's just that I spelled it like we pronounce it around here. Santa Anna to us in these parts, was nothing but a bloody cold-hearted murderer.

On the US medals though, Americans can buy some-just not the bravery awards though. The last big Militaria show I went to-which was in Houston in Feb 02 or 03? there were several dealers selling US medals @ $5 bucks a pop-no matter which ones you wanted. I skipped out on buying any-since I don't collect them. I was a tad disappointed at the lack of German stuff there-even guns. I did find a few dealers who were selling those "mandep ribbon bars" which all were brass made fakes. They looked great to the untrained ribbon bar eye, and these were made to purposely decieve those newbies. I saw about 10 or so 8,910,11 & 12 place ribbon bars sold at a few stalls.

All of these had been "aged" by rubbing dirty oil and or cigarette ashes onto the ribbons-which "ages" them nicely. I was almost fooled by them when I first encountered them being sold by a guy on ebay, using the username of: "Mandep" hence the name-mandep ribbon bars) on ebay. I saw that he had about 20 auctions going for these multi-place ribbonbars at the same time-which was red flag Nr. 1, red flag Nr.2 was that these were all 8,9,10,11 & 12 place ribbonbars--which you will never see-unless at a museum or at some swanky auctionhouse-or in some longtime collectors collection. Red flag Nr.3 on these bars-were that almost all of them had the Blood-Order ribbon on them, with a Feldherrnhalle device as well as even some with SS runes.

Well, when I saw these auctions, this was about 8-9 years ago and I was dumb and inexperianced anough to get taken. I sent the guy a message inquiring that I was interested in three of these-a 10,11 & 12 place bar-to be exact. All of them had the same awards in the same places-and one extra included. All of these also had real devices on the ribbons. However, after I learned more about ribbon bars-a 4th red flag should have been raised-which was to tell me that some of the devices on the bars-were fantasy devices-such as the one with the feldherrnhall devices, as well as a 5th red flag-which was the order of precidence of the ribbons. The 5th and final red flag was that no ribbon bars are made with brass but, some are indeed "washed" with a "brass" wash.

Anyway Skipper, nope, you were not in the wrong.

The end of my story was that once I found out these were fake-and about $175.00 later, I contacted Mandep, and told him they were bad and I wanted a refund-to his credit, he refunded all my money in a decent amount of time but, had asked me not to expose him publicly on Militaria forums. I gave him my word on not doinig so in public but, if I saw someone buy one of his bad bars-I sent them a PM so as to not break my word. Also to Mandeps credit, he pulled all of his bad bars off ebay. I do not know what he did with them-but at least he was no longer selling fakes on ebay.

 

Mortman, nice rack of insignia and awards. Thank you for sharing and would like much to hear the stories behind earning them.

Take care and best regards-Carl.

 

Nice mounted items.

One of these days, i'll get around to showing off my small WWII German Collartab collection. These are mounted in a ryker mount. Once I get enough "stuff" I will have these all mounted professionally and the items will have a"face" to go with them-especially the last few pairs I bought-which are associated with their respective RKTs-and at too much of a cost--according to my Brothers and Sister but; can I help it if im addicted to collecting German stuff? ;-))

 

Today a modest tribute to our Aussie friends. All I had from this far away country was a hat clap, but that was without the parcel I received from my friend KRIEG last week!
Krieg has sent me this as a gift along with a few pictures. They are infantery insignia and a modern ANZAC hat pin. (My insignia is the one that goes on the edge of this Aussi hat. It's still a samll pannel , but hey , not all my neigbours have these, that's for sure. Cheers Krieg!



Also I have a anothe rLuftwaffe lantern, this time dated 1940 with the original glasses.





Finally I bought this French canteen at the local flee market. You think it looks very different? No wonder it's a genuine Cavalry model!