Chris Boonzaier

I remember watching a TV special in the US about 10-15 years ago. They were looking for nazi gold in a lake in Austria. it lasted about 12 hours with lots of film clips and you could phone in with donations for some "Victims of the war" charity. All the time focusing on a metal container seen by a remote conrolled submersible. After 12 hours of donations and stinging this out they managed to get theis container onto the edge of the lake..... a container that had contained tank munition... filled by the Germans with gold and thrown in the lake.... After 12 hours they opened it..... ... and found tank munitions.... back to the old drawing board ;-)

I have the same rifle. I think Dave Danner or Ed Haynes would be the naturals for this.

Hi, I dont find this on his site anymore ?

I think Weitze has the wrong ribbon?

This is however a different class. Most regt medals are for the 50th or 100th anniversary. This one is a wartime one given to the Austrians whe were fighting with the Alpenkorps. The Alpenkorps was being trained for mountain warfare by the Austrians at the time. Would love to find the exact criteria....

Really, really, really, really, really, really nice........

I bet you would make the local papers. The volunteer firebrigades usually have a certain sense of tradition in germany, especially in small places like that.

Could very well be true. I saw many of them in morocco in the silver markets and I have a lighter made by a POW (I am not sure if Boer war or WW1) with inlaid Thalers. It seems to have been the USD of Africa in the 19th, early 20th centiry.

sorry, click on Geschichte

According to this... in 1935 they had a big ceremony to celebrate 50 years of being, and recieving their new flag. http://ffw-schildthurn.zeilarn.de/

Here is the web page of the Fire station it came from.... http://ffw-schildthurn.zeilarn.de/ I am sure they would pay way over market to get it back ;-)

I assume this was one of the Pre-HJ youth groups? Can it be something to do with the Totenkopf Schwimmer?

I have just won this... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=290002972433 Has anyone seen one before? Obviously worn... was this given to the Austrians they were serving with... or other regts of the Alpenkorps? it is from 1915, the time when the Austrians awarded the Alpenkorps the Edelweiss cap badge....

Hi, I have been looking but cannot find a mention of him. The area the 18th Feb incident happened in had none of the traditional Brit regt operating in, mainly I.Y. which were an odds and sods mixture, so little chance of finding anything I am afraid. I have the medal group to the Boer officer that pulled up the tracks in that action :-) He actually won a DSO in WW1....

Baden Powell. I think the brits brought out a postage stamp with his head. or maybe a stamp used during the siege for mail being sent out of mafeking. Old BP had a large ego.

Impressive, they must have taken quite some time to collect !!

I think it boils down to a bit of hearsay and if you believe in a handful of prototypes or not. This is a discussion that has been had half a dozen times online with hundreds of heated posts... However, there are always more and more collectors online... at some stage maybe one of them could provide something concrete. There are some very advanced collectors with "prototypes" and they have paid big bucks for them... they now HAVE to believe. from the evidence so far, I choose not to.

I think that is photo shopped.

The sledge in question apparently has been painted with some kind of grounding colour. What was the standard factory colour? a green similar to the helmets? best Chris

Ooooohhh... must be useful down at the change rooms at the local swimming pool ;-)

Here are the backs and the stamp on the small one, which is not riveted, but welded at points where the others have rivets.

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Lets see your spades! Europe wide they seem to have been all very similar, so i am hoping for a thread where we can compare the spades of all nations (hence here in a general section and not in the german or whatever). All very similar. The green one is a German one from verdun, the one with a saw on the side a french one from the 1970s and far, by far the best quality. The black one... I heard may be Swiss? And what about the small one with maltese cross?

In the last pic you can see the beaten flat aluminum rivet on the right.

I assume the liner is a replacement, but period and used, not some collector thing. Could it be afghan? There are no holes on the side, but a tiny one up on the front in the middle, I assume for the pin of a badge of some sort.