Hi to all fellow Militaria collectors and historically interested people !

[FULMINATA]

Hi, my name is Martin

I have been collecting Militaria for many years now. I started at an early age. My father was the culprit. At this time it was just every time an adventure being together with my father and digging through piles of Militaria on flea markets or going to Verdun, visiting Normandy beaches or just simply hiking in the mountains and talking about historical topics. Later after my father died I sold the complete collection and started again after about 15 years. I am glad to have found this forum and I am looking forward to build up new contacts and having good chats.

Many Greetings to you all! 😃

Martin

[Proud Kraut]

Hi Martin & welcome to the WMF!

 

Lars

[FULMINATA]

Hallo Lars,

 

vielen Dank! Ich spreche auch deutsch. Also hab lang in D gelebt und kanns daher genauso gscheit und ohne Akzent wie jeder andere auch.

Was sammelst du denn so?

 

LG, Martin

 

I switch back into english as I do not want to be unpolite to other members.

 

Thank you Lars! What are you specialized in?

Greetings, Martin

[Preppy Picker]

Welcome aboard Martin, my father got me involved as well. I got his toy soldiers.

[FULMINATA]

Thank you Preppy!

I can see you are from the US. What I like doing for already several years now I travel the US via google street view and have seen so many locations one wouldn`t have never ever seen 20 years ago. Many historical locations I heard of when I was a kid I could already discover thanks to this website. I just scroll over the map and look up all the historical markers. I found out so many interesting things. 😀

What do you collect?

Many Greetings, Martin

 

[Preppy Picker]

It’s more like what don’t I collect. Anything real that I come across.

[Proud Kraut]

Martin,

your German is perfect but you´re right, we should go on in English here. To answer your question. I collected US Army SSI for more than two decades. I quit collecting some years ago and started modeling again. I´m still interested in Bundeswehr insignia, mainly pocket hangers and SSI, but no real hunting any more.

What´s you collecting focus?

 

Lars

[SARGE]

Welcome Martin.  I see you have already helped some of your fellow members identify some of their mystery items.  Thanks for your help.

 

I generally collect Polizei items from various German, and other, Imperial to DDR time period units.  I also collect edged weapons and wrote a book on German bayonets from 1919-1945.  But, like most of us here other items interest me as well.

 

George

 

[FULMINATA]

On 9/7/2024 at 5:50 AM, Proud Kraut said:

Martin,

your German is perfect but you´re right, we should go on in English here. To answer your question. I collected US Army SSI for more than two decades. I quit collecting some years ago and started modeling again. I´m still interested in Bundeswehr insignia, mainly pocket hangers and SSI, but no real hunting any more.

What´s you collecting focus?

 

Lars

 

Hi Lars,

several years ago I came upon a website ran by Frank Hummel promoting his new book he still was working on. "Verbandsabzeichen der Bundeswehr". As I had some Bundeswehrheraldry to identify I waited another 2 or 3 years until finally Mr. Hummel published his book. I bet you know this book and its a very good book. I think he already has sold most of his Verbandsabzeichen he used for the book on his website. I also thought about collecting different badges and patches. But I am more into helmets. Collecting is, as every collector knows regulated by two big magnitudes: time and money. 🙄

 

But I have also Bundeswehr helmets. 🙂 One or two trial versions of the early para helmets, too.

 

Greetings, Martin

[FULMINATA]

On 9/7/2024 at 4:07 PM, SARGE said:

Welcome Martin.  I see you have already helped some of your fellow members identify some of their mystery items.  Thanks for your help.

 

I generally collect Polizei items from various German, and other, Imperial to DDR time period units.  I also collect edged weapons and wrote a book on German bayonets from 1919-1945.  But, like most of us here other items interest me as well.

 

George

 

Hi George,

thank you very much for the warm welcoming! Collecting historical german police units sounds interesting! I think I would prefer US police units as I like the vast amount of different US police badges. Especially when it comes to wild west and the protoshape of these badges. The 5 tip police star. Thanks to the Italowestern movies almost every kid in Europe was dreaming of being in the wild west.

As already replied to Lars, I focussed on helmets. Especially on european M1 variants. That`s why I can determine most of them. But I agree with you I am also interested in other items too. Especially when they tell an interesting story.

Once somebody offered me a ZIPPO lighter but it was simply too expensive for me. 300Dollars and I had no money at that moment. The seller was completely non military interested and had the lighter from his father an iran diplomat. This diplomat had a long friendship to a US special operations soldier serving in vietnam war where they were flewn in by helicopters did their jobs behind enemy lines and flew back. Mostly night missions. You have to have guts for such missions. Honestly I don`t have the guts. The soldier passed away very early in the nighties I think. But before this he was somehow put on duty in the US embassy in Iran and had to deal with foreign diplomats. There he met the father of the seller. This iran diplomat also served before he was a diplomat in the Iran Army in a special unit. I guess these two guys understood each other on a different level. And if I understood it right they had a very deep friendship. When this us soldier had to leave Iran he gave the lighter to his friend as a present.

The son fled years later from Iran to Germany where he started a new life with his family. I bought a helmet from this guy on ebay and he also tried to sell me the lighter. But unfortunatelly I had no money.

The lighter was engraved. There was the name of the unit, I think also the soldiers name and a helicopter. I know there are thousends of engraved lighters but because of the story it was really special.

Many Greetings,

Martin

PS.If I find the pictures of the lighter I will post it.

 

[shemp h.]

Hi Martin and welcome aboard, I too sold my 30 year Japanese collection in 2012 due to job loss but the bite was still infectious and I started collecting again 3 years later and also started collecting TR headgear!

 

            Bill

[SARGE]

Martin,

 

Thanks for the Zippo lighter story.  One thing often seems to lead to another.  

 

I am also interested in other old law enforcement organizations such as occupation period US Constabulary, USFA, etc.

 

 

[Proud Kraut]

Hi Martin,

 

yes of course I know Frank Hummel´s insignia book. It´s a very good source for Bw Army pocket hangers showing nearly all of them.

 

@Sarge: This Constabulary helmet is awesome!

 

Lars

[SARGE]

@Sarge: This Constabulary helmet is awesome!

 

Lars

 

Thanks Lars.  This helmet is part of a grouping along with a couple of his uniforms and his retirement plaque with various insignia that he wore from his time in service.

 

George