Gordon Craig

Uwe, Interesting items. I've seen the books before but not the slide rule. Thanks for posting these things. Regards, Gordon

Laurence, There is no Panzer artillery. Unfortunately, you have a beret with the wrong cap badge on it. Artillery would wear a red beret with their own cap bdge if they were assigned to a Panzer Division. They would wear the Panzer Divisions shield on their arm to indicate which division they were serving in. Regards, Gordon

Kevin, Interesting history lesson. Claire, Here is some info on the Order of Queen Marie Cross of 1917. I hope someday we can fill in the history of your particular cross. Regards, Gordon ORDER OF THE QUEEN MARIA CROSS (1917) Auction XIII ID:452 Category:ROMANIA Commander's Cross, 1st Class, 1st model, neck badge, silver gilt, on the obverse the cipher of Queen Maria, Red Cross on reverse, original ribbon. A very rare first model from World War I! Instituted by King Ferdinand on March 17th, 1917 to reward the merits of civil and military medical personnel, during war and in time of peace. There are three classes of which this is the highest. I- RR!

This one was listed as a Senior Instructors badge. Regards, Gordon

Achern, Here are a couple of [ictures of silver Jugoslav para Instructor badges that I found on the web. First one is for Instructor.

Achern, I have only seen that type of double pronged pin on Yugoslav badges. That does not guarantee that it is authentic unfortunately but it certainly is a great looking badge. There appears to be a date at the bottom. Can you tell us what it is please. Also, how many flames are there in the torch? Regards, Gordon

Claire, I can not point you to a country of origin but I can tell you that it is not Hungarian. If it were Hungarian the crown in the centre would be for St Stephan with the bent cross on the top. The cross on this crown is straight so you can rule out Hungary. Regards, Gordon

GC, A trip to fomer Soviet military bases in Germany sounds like a very interesting project. This is something that occured to me after your post on visiting former soviet bases in Hungary. Now I just have to find the time and the money! Regards, Gordon

GC, Very interesting stuff. I didn't visit any of the ex-soviet airfields while I lived in Budapest but I wish now that I had. Too busy visiting flea markets I guess. The reference to a two volume set of books on Soviet air fields is one I was not aware of. I have an excellent book by Károly Vándor called "Soviet Air Forces in Hungary & Austria 1944-1991. A description and the history of Kunmadaras starts on page 60 and finishes on page 80. The pictures in your links definitely adds to my understanding of these airfields. Regards, Gordon

Xtender, That is very interesting information. Someone over payed then. I'll have to do some research and see if I can tell the originals from the fakes. Regards, Gordon

GC, Looking forward to pictures of your "finds" on the ex Soviet soviet bases. Regards, Gordon

Greg, It will have to remain rhetorical. I think the plough was used at first to represent the peasants but who really knows why it was selected? Or for that matter, why it was changed to the sickle. Regards, Gordon

GC, Budapest is a great city on many levels but truly a Mecca for militaria collectors. With monthly militaria shows and so many militaria stores I was never at a loss to find something to do. Didn't always have enough money to do what I wanted! Regards, Gordon

talltom, Good luck in your search for an early jaegertruppe beret and badge. Luckily for me that was the first beret I bought. I didn't realize at the time that it was rare. Just dumb luck on my part. Regards, Gordon

Onrej, Interesting medal and pictures. I've never seen the Czechoslovakian coal miner's uniform before. Do you have any more pictures of these uniforms? I'd be interested in a better picture of the shoulderboards and the sleeve shield. Regards, Gordon

talltom, Interesting collection of uniforms. Especially the panzer berets all to the same person. The beret was first authorized for wear on 18 September 1969 by Panzertruppe, Jaegertruppe, and Fallschirmjaeger. These early badges did not have the national colours on them and are hard to find. By the end of the 70s the beret was authorized for wear by all arms of the BW but all beret badges now had the national colours at the bottom. The soft early brown panzer beret comes in two slightly different variations. One with a brown leather band around the head opening and the other with a black leather band. The early brown berets for officers had silver wire embroidered cap badges. These berets are virtually impossible to find. I've only seen them in pictures. Glad to see someone post BW uniforms on the forum. Good luck in your future collecting. Regards, Gordon

Manufacturers label inside the right breast.

Label inside left breast giving size and cleaning instructions.

The tunic buttons.

The collar insignia.

A close up view of the rank insignia.

A shoulder board showing the rank insignia. I have no reference for ranks so I do not know what the actual rank is. The stars are unusual for Hungarian insignia.

Gentlemen, Some pictures of the tunic of the Industrial Facilities’ Guard. Regards, Gordon

cimbineus Thanks for filling in the gaps in our knowledge about the Industrial Facilities’ Guard. Would you please post their name in Hungarian for me please. Do you have any information on the rank structure of the Industrial Facilitiies Guard? Perhaps a picture of their rank insignia? Am I correct that caps with gold cords would have been worn by senior officers in this organization? Regards, Gordon

Ondrej, Thanks for the response. I thought perhaps this was from the Slovak State but since the name of the area changes so often its difficult to know what to call something. Perhaps as I get more knowledgable about Czech/Czechoslovakia/Slovakia etc I'll know what term to use. Because of thsi problem, it is common for English speaking collectors to refer to everythng from this area as "Czech". Whether this is right or wrong is not really important to the collector. Just a commonly done thing. Thanks agaon for the information on this award. It looks very interesting and when I can find time I'll try to do more research on it. Regards, Gordon