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Hello Leon, The seam is overlapped and appears to be welded. That's a useful identifying feature I hadn't thought of, so I'm most grateful for the guidance (again!).

The Svenske Gustaf-Adolfs-Kyrkan has a long tradition in Hamburg since 1906 and survived the bombings of 1943 There are also the Danish, Norwegian and Finnish Seemens' Churches in Hamburg, each with their own special Christmas Markets offering specialiaties and refreshments and demonstrating Skandinavian Christmas traditions and open to the public. All these churches are situated around the old port of Hamburg or the Waterfront. The Swedish Church is the only one to offer the Swedish Christmas Traditions of Luciakonserter and Julbasaren, well worth seeing and hearing. En mötesplats för alla som vill känna sig hemma i utlandet. Kyrkobyggnaden är vackert belägen vid Hamburgs hamn. Gudstjänster firas söndagar kl 11:00. Kom till kyrkans Café och njut utav hembakade kanelbullar, kakor och svenskt kaffe.

Picked these up today at an antiques fair today, they are the British war medal & the victory medal , both named to the same man. Both in nice condition , ribbons didn't fair as well but I have folded them to hide most of the fraying & grime. PTE. P. MCRAE. . RAMC.

There are no German flags on this card. The flags from left to right are: Japan Belgium Britain France Serbia Italy Russia The card was obviously produced in 1915. The German national flag was black / white / red The war flag used by the Imperial Navy was such:

Other nations' churches in Hamburg, Kirche des Heiligen Prokop The Russian Orthodox Church in Hamburg-Stellingen This old church in Hamburgs Karolinenviertel was recently taken over by the Russian Orthodox community, as it had fallen into disuse. The English Anglican St.Thomas à Becket Church in Hamburg's St. Pauli district has a very long tradition dating back to the late 17th Century.

The Norwegian Church in Hamburg The Danish Church in Hamburg The Finnish Church and Seeman's Mission in Hamburg. The tower in the background is of Hamburg's "Michel".

Can you tell me Allan were the seam edge meets is it overlapped or butt jointed, if it's overlapped then it's British for sure. It's possible that the letter marks are poorly stamped and are hard to see now with paint covering them, trouble is the Americans also used spilt rivets for a time I've seen helmets with American stamp marks and split rivets on their M1917 helmets, it's a nice looking helmet and in good condition.

Thanks so much, Leon21. This is very helpful. I thought the stamps might possibly be rather poorly executed HS stamps, which would be Hadfield of Sheffield, but it's hard to tell what they are! I've looked at them in various lights with magnifying glasses, and it still seems uncertain. The second stamping, between the two longer lines, might even be a blunt WD arrow, if I allow my imagination some free reign.... Thanks again for all your help. It's much appreciated.

Here we have two examples from the Scottish regions of the NFS. Western No 1 -HQ in Glasgow = No 1 Fire Force. Western No 2 -HQ in Paisley = No 2 Fire Force.

Welcome to the forum Allan, the helmet is most likely British made but the stamp marks are unknown, it's possible that this shell was refurbished into the M1917A1 helmet commonly referred to as the Kelly helmet at some stage in the past. Between 1932 and 1936 the American M1917 and the British MK1 helmets were modified with a new leather liner and web chinstraps and used by the American Army until the new M1 helmet was introduced in 1941. The M1917A1 helmets saw service at Pearl Harbour, and Wake Island and the Philippines. The helmets were painted a sandy colour for the Army and blue for the Navy.

Many thanks to Clueless Tommy and to Fritz for your very helpful replies. I've had a look at the list of makers and tried to match them to the stampings on the helmet rim, but it's not easy to make any sort of match. I may have to take some sandpaper to it and see if that reveals anything clearer - although I think that's a last ditch remedy. Truly, this is a fascinating hobby! Best wishes, Allan

That's not too bad, you should see the state of the ribbon on this lovely decoration - a Russian George Cross, but lucky to have survived at all, most have no ribbon or ring whatsoever. The picture is a bit small, could not improve.

Yes they are folded just so as to hide the inperfaction , someone had fired paper staples through them making holes & runs in the material, 3 staples in each for some reason

Very nice, the ribbons look fine in the picture, better than modern replacement copies

Hi Nicola, I sent gunner a message but have not heard back from him yet, he is in Australia and I know he works away from home for several weeks at a time, hopefully will hear from him soon

In the meantime, I found this listing of his medals all in one lot! I'm guessing this is what Gunner found, and I can only hope that he either bought them, or sold them. Either way, I might be able to get to speak to the current owner. To allay anyone's fears - I'm not claiming ownership as a descendent - my Dad was abroad when his Mother died, long before he met my Mum, and he assumed that her things went into storage, but he didn't know what happened to them, and I can only assume that they were sold at some kind of auction when the lease ran out. I'm kind of wondering if it would be possible to trace it all back to when they were originally sold - medals are much more easily traced than other items that we don't even know what there was. It would be really interesting to find the original auction and see what there was, and see if it's possible to track any of it down. We have absolutely nothing of my Dad's parents, not even photographs. I find that really sad. I wonder if there are photographs from my Granddad's service time. Sorry, I guess because my Dad died this year I'm a bit sentimental about the attachments. Even if the current owner isn't willing to sell them; I can provide a little bit more historical context to the medals, and they might have more research about the actual war activities that they can share with me. I do have one question, what does the G.V.R Second Issue mean? I've tried searching online, but I can only find other auctions of the medal, with no actual description of what it is. I think it's a long service one, but I'm not sure what the R would mean, or the second issue. As you may have guessed, I'm not exactly a medal collector - I managed to find explanations of what the other ones were online. I don't really know anything about medals otherwise. My Dad attained the rank of Corporal during his compulsory service, but he only did the two years that was required, so he didn't get medals, and we've never had medals around at home. Thanks for any help, Nicola