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    GC*

    Past Contributor
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    Posts posted by GC*

    1. Good afternoon gentlemen,

      I recently bought this hungarian piece as part of a bigger lot.

      My hope was to have bought a cockade, but I am honestly not very sure that this badge is actually a hat badge - I could not see the reverse and assumed there would have been some prongs there, or at least their remains, but what I found there when I received the piece was quite unexpected.

      Your comments on this issue would be much appreciated.

      Thank you

      GC*

    2. Gentlemen, thanks to you all for your comments!

      Peter Monahan, you are definitely right. This topic itself is the proof that a database of arab eagles is definitely needed. The amount of different versions and the stunning similarity between some of them (at least to my inexperienced eyes) make them very interesting, but at the same time their cataloguing quite difficult..

      Bmsm, unfortunately I will be able to take better pictures of these badges only in mid December, but I will very happy to provide a better pic of that badge asap!

      Lion101, your comment is once more very helpful! Your comment definitely helps! The red-white-black eagles have the shield made of very good quality material and the shield itself looks like a separated piece then fixed on the main structure..at the same time the design and quality of the green shield eagles looks poor in comparison to the other eagles.. That's quite interesting!

    3. Actually, regarding this last star, I had some talks with other fellow collectors and there seem to be a general agreement on the fact that it is Soviet..the point is, was one of those stars produced in the USSR and then used in Yugoslavia?

      Nevertheless..I recently made two wonderful gains concerning Yugoslavia and I will be definitely showing them here on the forum asap!

    4. Here I found some photographic evidence of what I was talking about while referring to the case of Bulgaria.

      Here we find two WWII Royal Bulgarian caps [http://www.shopbulgaria.com/files/products/cache/w_1289948400_5000_4000_1289990207.jpg ; ], while here we have the Lion without crown I mentioned before [http://www.shopbulgaria.com/files/products/cache/w_1340114731_5000_4000_1340114731.jpg].

      All of that reminds me really a lot about the case of the Polish communist forces; the eagle was left, while the crown was dropped.

      So, was this type of Bulgarian lion worn by soldiers after the Fatherland Front coup??..

    5. Dear fellows, here I am once again with something that could maybe be a Yugoslav partisan star.

      Well, here come the pictures!

      I was wondering, Emanuel, whether this star could be like the smaller one on the second picture of that amazing book of yours.

      The picture of the reverse will help to clarify the star's measures!

      Thanks you.

      Best,

      GC

    6. Dear fellow collectors,

      Since many years I am desperate to find a Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) cap badge (like the one showed in the picture attached).

      I am sure everybody knows about the DSE, but in case not, it was the communist army founded after the end of WWII which participated (and lost) the Greek Civil War (which erupted after a mass persecution of ex communist partisans and the start of armed clashes between communist and monarchist-british forces)

      I am also researching wether the DSE produced any other type of cap badges for its trrops. In this photo it is clearly possible to see a communist partian wearing the cap badge I am so desperately looking for, . Until now I did not find any information in support of the thesis that ither DSE hat badges exist, but I am open to any comments about that!

      Any comment or remark would be much appreciated!

      Thank you.

      Best,

      GC

    7. Let's now pass to the problematic issues, from the simplest to the most complicated one.

      1) Poland. Am I right in saying that the Armia Ludowa, before being incorporated in the Lodowe Wojsko Polskie used another eagle, as well without crown, but with a more traditional design? Is it this that eagle, ?

      2) Bulgaria. I have seen many pictures of Bulgarian caps with attached a piece of cloth bearing the two letters "ОФ", the initials of "Fatherland Front", http://www.militaryheadgear.com/system/photos/000/021/558/large/Bulgarian_Fatherland_Front_Garrison_Cap.jpg?1287517505. But, for example, look at this picture , some soldiers are wearing some kind of stars on their caps. And in this picture it is clearly possible to detec a variety of different cap badges.

      Another question. I have come across several examples of the Bulgarian wartime lion with crown..I however also found lions of the same type without the crown..were they used by the Bulgarian army after the coup? Which means, was it, at least at first, like in Poland, were the eagle stayed and the crown disappeared?

      3)Czechoslovakia. I had no previous knowledge about wartime Czechoslovakian hat badges, although I do have several post-war Czechoslovak stars and hat badges in my collection. Now look at these pictures, this is General Svoboda http://i.pravda.sk/09/073/skcl/P292cb036_svoboda.jpg and these two female soldiers ..it looks to me that, respectively, they are wearing such hat badges , http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Czechoslovakia-Army-Cap-Badge-/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/$%28KGrHqQOKnME52NRU9wTBOquYq3Pww~~60_35.JPG .

      This assumption comes from few researches, but I never actually made it to find a picture from which I could clearly see the cockade worn on caps by Czechoslovak officers and soldiers..

      4) Romania. No idea whatsoever about which type of hat badges were in use in the Romanian Army when it switched sides and fought alongside the Soviets..

      Well, many questions and many doubts, I admit that.. Nevertheless I hope that some of you will find this issues interesting and will decide to provide me with some information-comments-opinions!

      Thank you.

      Best,

      GC

    8. Dear fellow collectors,

      I am starting this topic to discuss with you my latest collecting interest, namely the hat badges worn by Czechoslovak, Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish units which fought alongside the Red Army in the Second World War.

      Just to make clear immediately what I mean, in referring to the countries reported in the topic's title I refer to the following military formations:

      Bulgaria - Fatherland Front and Bulgarian army units which fought together with the Soviets after the coup of September 1944

      Romania - Romanian army units which fought together with the Soviets after the coup of August 1944

      Czechoslovakia - the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps, formed in 1942

      Poland - the Armia Ludowa (People's Army) and the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie (People's Army of Poland)

      Let's start with the pieces I already have in my collection. Here come a People's Army of Poland eagle (produced in the Soviet Union without the crown and with a different design from original Polish army eagles) and a Bulgarian WWII-immediate postwar period star (I have discussed with other collectors about this star and nobody seems to be sure whether it was actually used by fighting troops in WWII or not - reminds me of the Yugoslav case, with its huge variety of different cap badges and cockades).

    9. Good choice! Because regarding the Warsaw medal the ring does not convince me and also about the Belgrade I have some doubts..

      Anyway, it might be helpful to look at this site sometimes, http://www.soviet-medals-orders.com/index.shtml (but maybe you already know it..).. it shows a large variety of different campaign medals' tipologies, with specific details (as well as other Soviet medals and orders)!

    10. Dear fellow collectors, I am a collector of Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations hat badges. However, I started since few time to broaden my horizons and I approached those Arba states which experimented Arab Socialism and various forms of "marxist government".

      So here we are. These are my first eagles.

      I am particularly proud of the two Libyan ones.

      I would have some questions. First, regarding the Libyan, Egyptian and South Yemenese ones, could somebody tell me in which period and in which corp (military? police?) they were used?

      Then we come to the littler ones, to the stars-with-eagles and to the unknown rank.

      First, are they iraqi? Again, period/corp?

      And are they hat badges or collar/uniform pins?

      Same for the other badges under the three eagles.

      Thanks for your help

      Best,

      GC

    11. Good evening to everybody gentlemen,

      I would need your help with this DDR General of the Airforce hat badge.

      The question is simple..original or fake?

      It comes from itself that unfortunately I do not own a copy of Klaus Walther's precious volumes "Uniformeffekten der bewaffneten organe der DDR" Band I or II.

      I am actually planning to buy both volumes since some time, but the few copies available on amazon and ebay are so expensive..and every time I plan to save some money to buy them I run into some hat badges of undoubted originality which I finally buy..

      So gentlemen, I need your help. Is this hat badge original or a post-Cold War copy?

      I actually own the same hat badge but in the black cloth and silver cockade version, and the back of the black cloth shows the signs of the embroidery, while here we have just cloth..but besides this detal I cannot say that much..seems original to me, but maybe somebody with a reference book can tell me more.

      Thank you very much.

      Best,

      GC

    12. Dear Taz and Artan, thank you very much for your comments.

      I see that my headache will keep on making me search for this cockade's origin! :)

      Forestry service is indeed a good point of reflection, but I am still trying to figure which country this hat badge could belong to. Albania was actually my last possibility, I'll try to look closer into my sources.

      Anyway, thanks a lot to you both gentlemen.

      Regards,

      GC

    13. Dear fellow collectors.

      I just came across this hat badge which is giving me real headache.

      I thought it might be an albanian one principally for one reason: i collect hat badges from the Warsaw Pact nations and I have a relatively good knowledge of Yugoslav post-war hat badges. Thanks to very interesting conversations here on the forum I also bettered my knowledge of WWII and immediately post-war Yugoslav cap badges. Well, here comes the point. I've never seen a badge like the one I am posting here before, nor it appears to have any immediate similarity with the style of all the former European socialist countries.

      A friend and collector also suggested me that the hat badge could be Albanian, saying that he remembered he once saw an Albanian Navy hat badge which looked pretty similiar to this one - but he was definitely not sure about that.

      So, now I turn to you!

      Thank you.

      Best,

      GC*

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