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Pictured from my collection is an optical gunsight for a 3.7 cm anti-aircraft gun (Flak M42) manufactured for the Kriegsmarine. The code for this manufacture is 'dow' (Waffenwerke Brunn A.G. (1943 - Opticotechna Gmbh, Prerau Czech.)). The optic has a wide field of view with a ranging reticle. Even though designed to withstand harsh environments, this optic was made to be removed from the weapon system mounted on an U-boat .

Pictured from my collection is a Kriegsmarine sea mine timer marked dnt M 4598.

All: I just finished reading all the posts, what a great exchange between everyone. A big 'THANK YOU' to to Kenny Andrew, Fritz, Gildwiller1918, Eddieq, Urkund1939, Ycvu, and Phantom for sharing their knowledge with others. The ones asking the questions and the ones providing the answers make the Forum great. Best regards, John R.

Pictured from my collection of Kriegsmarine antiques is bunker light from the Channel Islands. This light was manufactured by 'dzw' Metalwerke v. Galkowsky u. Kielblock, Finow. The fixture is original to the period with only wiring and socket mount being replaced by the prior owner years ago.

Pictured from my collection is dome compass (top) with lower binnacle case, type used aboard a Schnellboot. The Eagle, left of the gothic letter M on the bezel, was denazified with black paint, but not damaged. It is visible, just not in this photograph. The compass and sunshade (bottom) are marked C. PLATH of HAMBURG by the maker.

Pictured from my collection is a stereoscopic range finder manufactured for the Kriegsmarine by Carl Zeiss Jena (blc). This instrument was used to accurately estimate distance to a target calculated through triangulation, based on the length of the range finder. It can be operated with or without battery. The range finder and all its accessories are kept in a grey painted wood storage box, not shown from collection. A range finder like mine is pictured on page 424 and page 425 of 'Deutsche Kriegsmarine Uniforms, Insignias and Equipment of the German Navy 1933-1945' by Eduardo Delgado.

Pictured from my kriegsmarine collection is the emblem of the 1936 Olympics rings (top left) that was worn as an U-Boat tradition cap insignia by several crews, including U-165 and U-995. Also pictured is the insignia for the 9th U-Boat Flotilla 'Laughing Sawfish' (bottom right). Examples of the these tradition badges are on page 64, page 77, and page 83 of 'Torpedo Los! THE FASCINATING WORLD OF U-BOAT COLLECTIBLES' by Gordon Williamson.

Pictured from my kriegsmarine collection is an emblem and a badge used by the Ubootwaffe as tradition cap insignia. The emblem for the National Socialist League of the Reich foe Physical Fitness( left) was worn as an U-Boat cap insignia by the crew of U-274, as was the Edelweiss gap device of the German Army Mountain Troops (right) by the crew of U-124. Examples of the these tradition badges are on page 77, page 81, and page 83 of 'Torpedo Los! THE FASCINATING WORLD OF U-BOAT COLLECTIBLES' by Gordon Williamson. Pictured from my collection is a U-Boat tradition cap insignia 'Swordfish spearing an enemy sip' for the U-441 being worn by its Commander, Klaus Hartmann (white cap). All 51 hands, including Hartmann, died when U-441 was sunk by Allied depth-charges on 30 June 1944.

Hi John R., Thank you for your donation of 75.00 GBP. We look forward to improving the forums with your donation. Thanks Treasure Bunker Forum

Just got around to watching Greyhound, it was pretty good depiction of the Atlantic Ocean Battle. Although I understand that most U-boat Commanders were aggressive, in the movie it seemed to me they were very aggressive, to the point of recklessness. Just my opinion, but still an entertaining movie.

awesome collection thankyou for sharing

Here is my new Mannlicher 1890 Rifle or Infanterie Repetiergewehr M88/90. In 1888, the Austro-Hungarians changed the contract on their model 1886 rifles, mainly due to the French introduction of the smokeless powder Mle. 1886 Lebel. This involved moving away from the 11 x 58R cartridge to the 8 x 52R cartridge. The M88 was further upgraded to fire the new smokeless powder M1890 ball cartridge. The rifles that were modified for this were called the M88/90. This is a straight pull bolt rifle, and it is a very simple design with very few parts for disassembly. Some of the changes made to for the conversion to the new smokeless cartridge was adding a more narrow and shallower magazine, as well as a rechambered barrel and sight modifications. The barrel is stamped W-n 91 and marked OEWG. The rifle is about 50 inches long, and weighs 8.9 pounds, with a 5 round capacity magazine. Slightly over a million of these rifles were produced and like many other nations, these were also pulled out of storage for rear echelon units to replace massive losses at the front. This rifle at some point made it to Africa as it has the AOI stamp on the buttstock. This was a RTI gun, and was quite filthy and worn, but I cleaned it thoroughly and got it looking decent once more.

Hi Eddie, sorry I missed this post, yes unfortunately there was no "BM" RZM prefix, they are only found on fakes.

Thank you John, and we continue to look forward to your items as well.

Gildwiller1918: Hello. Fantastic acquisition, a great addition. Thank you for sharing your new antique Mannlicher 1890 Rifle with the Forum. Thank you for continuing to be a steward of history. Best regards, John R.

The swastika's edges look dull which is not a good sign.

Picture is a two-piece officer''s visor cover for junior grade from my collection of Kriegsmarine antiques. The cap has a hand-embroidered gilt wire national emblem and, cockade, as well as gold wire piping. This cap belonged to Werner Wendt (1916-1988), Captain of U-765. The U-765 was sunk in the North Atlantic on 6 May 1944 by depth charges on its first war parol. Werner and 10 crewmen survived, 37 dead. Pictured below is the underside view of the visor cap. Pictured below is the two-piece visor cover disassembled. In this configuration, a white or blue cap-covers could be worn. Because I do not like to take this cover apart, I used a photo taken years ago.

phantom: Hello. Thank you very much for the compliment. It is a pleasure to share my collection of Kriegsmarine antiques with the Forum. Kindest regards, John R.

Thanks John, much appreciated

Soak for a few hours in a bath of lemon juice (citric acid) and water or a solution of oxalic acid. Remove and rinse thoroughly when sufficiently clean, dry thoroughly. Rub with a suitable oil to preserve

very poor copy

looks like post war Souval

Progress is being made in the restoration of the Heinkel at Hawkinge - https://www.kbobm.org/heinkel_project.html

Update Alexander Married Elizabeth Campbell Baird born 1885 in Govan Glasgow, they were married on the 26 April 1912 and lived at 16 Cogan Street Pollockshaws. They had 4 children Mary Campbell Beveridge born 9th April 1912. George Beveridge born 4th April 1913. Alexander Beveridge born 11th April 1914. John Beveridge born 29th July 1917. This is how they are listed on his Pension Records. Alexander is remembered on The IWM .ORG.UK Lifestory by 2 people. Also on the Hollybrook Memorial Southampton. I also found him on the Roll of Honour of the Citizens of Glasgow, were he is listed twice, first at his Parents address of 24 Bengal Street Pollockshaws were he lived before he got married. and at 16 Cogan Street Pollockshaws were he lived after he got married giving the appearance that they are two different people when in fact they are the same person.

Here is my new acquired WW1 Italian Benaglia Rifle Grenade. It is in overall very good condition with small areas of pitting on the main body. This was a rodded rifle grenade used with the M91 Carcano rifle. This is the 2nd model with only one filling hole and stabilizing fins. The range of this was about 130 meters (427 ft) and could be used in both the regular length and carbine Carcano's.

Copy

here are backs. What about the badge. Its heavy, could be bronze but seems darker than originals i looked at?

they are pretty rusty.

Hi Kenny Are all badges marked with a BM known fakes- I’ve got a couple of German youth badges marked the same. E

Thanks everyone! And thank you for the reference links! I don't have any postcards with german machine guns, but I have quite a few postcards written by belgian frontline soldiers. There are definitely a few interesting ones among those. I checked the headstamps of the cartridges again and they're all 1918 dated. I thought they were 1916 and 1917, but apparently I remembered that wrong.

Everything supposedly fake but old fakes maby .EK2 non magnetic one piece, is this cross fake and what gives it away?

Thoughts on this medal please

XCVU, as Fritz said you might have to fiddle with the repro strap fittings to get them to work. Are the lugs clean and free of rust or corrosion?

Shortened but looks original

Awarded to all troops trapped in the Festung Dünkirchen, which surrendered on 9. Mai 1945 A copy being offered for 19,95 Euros https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dünkirchenschild A said original

So what do you think, Fritz? I've followed this thread for a while, and am certainly interested to get your take on the cross above. Does it tick the right boxes for an original?

Recently got 2 more VB's, these are dug examples. But very good condition. Note the top of the grenade in the first image, the difference in the area where the fuse it at.

I'm not a big expert on ww2 ek2's but I don't think there is a big difference between these and their ww1 counterparts. Try checking if the core is magnetic it should stick and then try checking the silver frame it shouldn't be as reactive as the core and you can feel the difference. Also the swastika's edges should be sharp and not dull. On your cross you can see that the color of swastika faded in some points try to compare the color of those points to the one of the frame they shouldn't be the same as it would indicate a one piece construction. While for the markings I did some research and they could be hallmarked just as their ek1 counterparts which may differ from a manufacture to another. Also try to slide a thin piece of paper between the frame and core it should slide in between. Hope this helps you.

Got it 1 year ago and it looked very interesting . It used to be mounted on a medal bar. Even if it was listed as an original I am still not convinced about it's authenticity .

Hi Kenny Had it confirmed that M1/70 (badge 1) is a well known copy. Badge 2 is marked RZM m1/22 (hard to make out the number) Badge 3 has an RZM mark, the letters BM and M1/122 cheers

Gildwiller1918, 72usmc, Fritz, phantom, KennyAndrew, Eddieq, and leon21: Hello. Thank each and everyone of you for all the recent likes, greatly appreciated. Best regards, John R.

I can't really remember Dune and never liked Sting much either. I did have a nice set of Black hole figures which were quite good and well made from memory.

No problem Joanie

Hi Seeker, I have managed to find out what the badge is .It's a private purchaise item made for a member of the Royal Scots or his girlfriend a sweatheart broach type of item.We are not sure whither it is a ring or a napkin ring it may be a bit small for this. And as G says the person on the badge is indeed Pontius Pilot. So you have quite a unique item there ,probably originally owned by a veteran who moved to the US or brought back by a US soldier who would have swapped it with a Tommy. Hope this helps

Thanks Seeker Leave it with me I'll see what I can find out.

Hello and thank you so much for your reply! I know absolutely nothing about this piece. The metal coiled ring on the back is heavy but not gold. A magnet does not stick to any parts of the item. I don't think the front decorative piece is gold either, although it has maintained its gold color at least on the front. My Friend said it looks like it may have been a sliding type of tie for a kerchief? Just guessing. It looks like a Roman Figure, but again, not sure. I have seen one or two badges with this Roman type of figure and "The Royal Scots" beneath, on E-Bay, but the rest of the pieces were nothing like this. As to dimensions: 15 mm from back of ring to front of decorative piece. Assume diameter of ring is about 14 mm. Decorative Piece is about 22 mm high, about 3 cm wide at broadest point. Hope this helps. Thanks again for your time and for the welcome!

The French magazines have great coverage, the prose is not too heavy but informative. (I'm lucky I can read French.) The pictures really make the publications, lots of unseen footage. Big pictures on good quality paper. The French seemingly have great photo archeives which being French they don't let anyone else use them. My copy of "Batailles" was centred on France 1940 and had about 5-6 pages of great BEF photos, only one of which I'd seen before. Really good for modellers and military buffs. Dave

There used to be an excellent magazine called "Militaria" great articles and pictures of your basic WW2 uniforms and equipment.French publication but they printed it over here for a while ,think it went bust unfortunately.I think you can still get it in France ,well worth picking up if see any old issues. sorry Dave I missed you had already mentioned "Militaria" but just to remind people it was available here too in English for a couple of years.

I know what you mean! I do not want to sound vain, but I have a degree in Military Studies and reading the usual 'yeah we have tanks and can crush people' and 'For death or Glory' type magazines just annoy me to no end. Granted I am not ready to yet go back to the REALLY dry stuff of actual Military Studies where a bunch of PhDs write back and forth articles on how many bullets it would take in how many minutes to do so much damage in a certain area. In general I prefer the middle road information, items that are still informed, well written and NOT sourced from Wikipedia but also not the high scholarly works I used when studying. Armourer is one I took on to get to know the UK collecting scene but have become annoyed with as every armchair general write in absolute bullocks about things and sources wikipedia. There was a recent article about the Schlieffen plan that firstly spelt Hew Strachan's name wrong (THE authority on WWI at the moment and also a former advisor of mine) and secondly it was outdated as (believe this or not) modern military history research suggests the Schlieffen Plan never existed. This is well documented, argued and agreed upon in many the the leading military journals currently. In short Armourer is for people who like to dress up as Waffen SS and have a good time. I've recently found Classic Arms & Armour. This deals in older stuff Pre-20th Century mostly but it is well researched and written with actual authority figures, proper citations and excellent articles. I do suggest it to anyone interested. What else do people suggest?