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How did you start?


Greg

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My turn. I have always been interested in History…My family also has a military Back ground. Four great uncles in ww1. My dad was a rezerbest .His oldest brother was in w11 and his other brother had over 30 years in army. Started out in ww2 then Korea and on.

Favourite studies were war of 1812 AND American civil war. Favourite Generals were

Isaac Brock and U.S Grant. Back around 1990 I went to Gun show with a friend. He collected German stuff. After that I was hooked. Back in those days collecting German

Medals here were hard. That stuff was frowned on. Only a few shows a year. No info

And no books. I really come from the wastelands when dealing with German medals.

Around 2000 the same guy introduced me to the computer. Old guys like me did not play with computers, my kids did. Anyways, it was a dream for me. I now could talk to other collectors and buy on line. A real dream. I learned to type and do photo essays.

A few years back I got into wound badges as the main study. Might go back to medal

Bars.Anyways…. Not bad for a old guy from the wastelands

don

info ISAAC Brock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Brock#Early_life

U.s Grant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant

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  • 2 months later...

Too much slagging of the DDR on here. They are now faking the high end awards from the DDR as well as the parade swords. The easiest way to tell a real sword from a fake one is that the fakes have a coloured DDR emblem on the hilt and the real ones don't. The real swords were handed out before the parade and then had to handed in after the parade,so no one had a sword to themselves.When you look at the Jingling Johnnies as well these fetch a very high price as well as some of the state flags and other pieces. The low end stuff is crap,but then again has anyone seen the UN medals??

The guys on here are correct though,buy quality in whatever field you decide to collect. I've seen a lot of Graeme's stuff and British medals have always fascinated me,maybe because of my fathers and brothers medals,and the fact that with a bit of research you can get to the man behind the bits of tin. Most people when you tell them what you collect think you are nuts anyway,so don't care what they think of you as long as you enjoy it. 

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  • 10 years later...
On 24/07/2008 at 10:50, Greg said:

I was under the impression the DDR was using surplus WWII Wehrmacht helmets through till the mid-50s when they got some Russian helmets and later went to their own style in the 60s or 70s. Support troops (engineer, fire brigade, etc) certainly were using Wehrmacht items or helmets made of WWII Wehrmacht machinery through the 50s.

 

The difference between a WWII Wehrmacht and late 1940s DDR helmet should be near next to nothing correct?

The DDR did not use surplus Wehrmacht items. The DDR was founded on 3.October 1949 on order of the Soviets. The DDR Streitkräfte -
Nationale Volksarmee  (no Wehrmacht) was raised in 1956 on order of the Soviets. It's predecessor had been the "Kasernierte Volkspolizei", which was under the direction of the Soviets and later under the Innenministerium der DDR.  They received completely new uniforms, based on the "recommendations" of Soviet Generals, which had a slight similarity to the uniforms of the Wehrmacht, in order to keep a certain tradition of appearance. The helmet used was based on the original design of 1944, which had never been introduced. The new helmets were manufactured only by V.E.B. Hüttenwerke in Thale/Harz.

image.png.62d0941816de6b8031451d914e4fdcb8.png

image.thumb.png.2acfd82812d698c5c26d96b0ca97aee2.png

NVA exercising at Bad Düben / Mulde

nva-wachregiment-104_v-variantBig16x9_wm-true_zc-ecbbafc6.jpg

The last uniform changes were in 1985-87, an open collar with shirt and tie, usually a silvergrey shirt, for special occasions, white. The old dark green closed collar had been abolished around 1972/73. In the photo, soldiers of the Wachregiment Friedrich Engels.

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  • 1 year later...

I started to collect by accident really. I was young, in primary school and an acquaintance of my Dad, a week or so before he died, gave me a tin which contained his ww1 medal pair. I've no idea why he left them with me (he was a farrier and I liked watching him shoe the horses, maybe that was it).

After that I was hooked and all pocket money & earnings would be spent on bus/train trips into the Barras in Glasgow, very early 1970's, where you could rake for medals, badges, insignia etc.

I mind my first purchase, a single 1914-15 Star to a guy in the HLI, 50p. First Third Reich badge, a tombak, R.K. marked Minesweeper badge, I think it was a fiver (I remember thinking it was an awful lot of money at the time).

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I started collecting when I was young, around the age of 15 or so. I grew up in Western Germany and was surrounded by centuries of history. I think the first items I got were Roman coins from Trier. I remember going to flea markets and finding WW1 and WW2 items fairly cheap.

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Trier's a beautiful place, you're lucky to have grown up nearby.

I checked, I've still got the pair of medals which sparked my original collecting interest, they were a gift so although common medals, they're still special (pic below, 8th Btn Seaforth Highlanders, taken POW 3rd Ypres, a mannie from Peebles). The early purchases from the Barras all long sold off or traded away.

IMG_3105.jpeg

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Nice medals, Trier and Idar Oberstein were two of my favorite places to visit. I also got into Russian medals around the time the wall came down, they were cheap then. 

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