jarodparker

Thanks Mike! That is an outstanding collection and great display. It's like you have a small museum in your living room. And you're right. It'll be hard for people to appreciate the value (both historical and monetary) if I keep my collection in a tackle box in a coat closet. On a side note, I recently watched BBC's "Bodyguard" and feel I have good insight into UK police structure, uniforms, weapons, etc. It's probably not too realistic in terms of TTP. And below is my Kagnew Battalion (Korean War) collection. The round patches are not Korean War...and obviously the Congo medal.

Thanks! The big naval badge is pretty similar to the one the emperor is wearing in this Photo. Even with the photo being blurry, you can see the only difference is the crown. I have an actual Imperial Navy peaked cap with a badge that's different than both and includes a Star of David with Ethiopian tricolor. I have no idea about the smaller badge pictured above, but the seller claimed it was Ethiopian.

I took some time today to review my collection, which is predominately (about 98%) Imperial Ethiopian militaria. And to quote my wife at the end of our third date, "I thought it'd be bigger." I really hope I misplaced some of the items. Otherwise, I'm blowing the Christmas budget on myself. I've included some photos below. I also have a few more items which I'm not including here, such as: rare naval memorabilia, swords, photos and documents/magazines that are very fragile. Enjoy... PS-Please let me know if you know of a good organizer like a fancy tackle box or something that could be used for storage and display. I don't have a man cave for a proper museum-style display. Sorry, I couldn't upload the image of the military book collection due to the 2MB limit.

Mystery solved...kinda. That is a badge/coin commemorating a meeting/congress of the "Commission for Organizing the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia." COPWE was the commission that created the Worker's Party of Ethiopia. WPE replaced COPWE in 1984. More information available on wiki. I am uncertain which meeting/congress this coin was for as the number and year are blurred in the photo. I think the year in the photo says "1976." According to wiki, "The first congress of COPWE was held on June 16-19, 1980...The second COPWE congress was held on January 3-6, 1983. If my math is right, the two congresses were held on 10/9/1972-10/12/1972 and 4/25/1975-4/28/1975 in the Ethiopian calendar. I don't know if additional meeting were held after the creation of WPE, so I don't know where "1976" comes into play.

Glad to be of service. I'm a native speaker, fellow collector and long time lurker. Actually, there are large Ethiopian communities in the US (Denver, parts of Texas, Vegas, LA, Oakland and especially DC), the UK and Canada. LA even has an official Little Ethiopia neighborhood.

Regarding Congobrown's post. The bars read... Left: Ethiopian Refugees 1928-1933 Center: For the fight for country and freedom 1928-1933 Right: For the fight for country and freedom 1928-1933

The initials on the wing badge are E.A.Ha, which could stand for Ethiopian Ayer Hayle or Ethiopian Air Force.

Oh and btw it reads something like, "Grazmatch Abakeba Gushegabameke". Don't get your hopes up but I'll let you know if I find out more. I like a good mystery.

Hey TR, Thanks for posting another pic. Just fyi, the latest pic is upside down (in case you want to put it in a display case or something). After spending some more time on it and even bringing second and third opinions, I am unable to decipher the remaning text. There are several issues such as whether to incorporate the chapracters at the two vertices of the shield when trying to read the name, whether the string at the bottom is one or two words*, and lastly whether to include the character after the colon above the shield. In any case it's not a very common name (probably from the Oromo or lesser Souther tribes). *Colons are traditionally used between words in Amharic, although you will see some using a space just as in English.

Hi, Looks to be an Imperial Ethiopian AF cap badge. "E-5" is probably the rank of the owner and "Traiku" his name. I have no idea what "K/AB" means.

Hey TR, You have a cool piece on your hands... hehe. First of all, the image is transposed. So after flipping it, I can see the first word at the top is "Grazmatch" meaning "Commander of the Left" which is indeed a high ranking officer/noble in the Imperial Court. But I'm having a hard time deciphering the second word which is most likely the officer's name. There are a ton of characters in the Ethiopian alphabet and obviously the workmanship of the ring is not top notch, so I'll need to see a straight forward shot to be able to translate the rest. Plus it could be a not so common name. Anyway, I'll keep scrutinizing this pic until you post another one. Hope this helps.

The language is in fact Amharic and not Geez. Right beneath the imperial seal is the Emperor's title, followed by a greeting and then the citation awarding said captain with the "Order of the Star Knight" (direct translation: Ethiopian Star of Honor). The two signatures are from the Defense Ministry and Information Ministry (for a lack of better translation). Hope this helps.

Hello all, It seems that the golden badge (top-left) seems to be some type of Wildlife Administration badge, but I'd have to see a clearer scan or photo of it. The silver badge (top-right) is an imperial era police badge. Bottom left is for the 2nd infantry division. Bottom-right is a Derg badge but I'm not sure for which service. The next scan... top two are Derg navy badges. Bottom two are from the current government. The last scan... the air force and navy badges. Then the bottom two are for the police. I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else translated; I'll try to visit often as you guys have a wealth of info here. Cheers!