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    Brian Wolfe

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    Blog Entries posted by Brian Wolfe

    1. Brian Wolfe
      The Perfect Darth Vader Voice


      After a year of retirement and after more landscaping projects completed than any one person of any age could expect to be done in one summer I am ready for a rest. I’m looking forward to the first frost and then the first heavy snowfall. With my snow blower back from the maintenance shop and binoculars in hand I await that first snowflake’s appearance like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse, or a WWII British Costal Defense Watcher scanning the skies for enemy planes. One task, now taken care of, was the packing up of the patio umbrella back into its case in which it was stored when we purchased it. The case is made of a very tough Nylon mesh with a large reinforced loop from which it can be hung up for storage in the garage or shed. Taking into account the price we paid for this giant bumbershoot we should proudly display it on the living room wall. Considering how my dear wife vetoed my plans for a rather large moose head in that same area I don’t suppose there is much chance of the umbrella being displayed there either. That was not really the perplexing issue with the umbrella as it turned out. The problem was one of displacement, or that is how I saw it. The case was a lot smaller than the umbrella, for some reason. It came out of this mesh “sock” so it seemed a matter of simple physics that it should be able to be returned as the volume of both the space and the object had not changed since we made the purchase in the spring. Having come to the end of my patience I decided to apply the following formula for displacement as a function of velocity and time:

      X=½(V +Vo)t

      Where:
      X=displacement
      V= velocity
      Vo=initial velocity

      The above is just another way to say I lost my temper and tried to give the umbrella the “bum’s rush” into the bag. It didn’t work. Starting over again and more slowly and calmly working the bag over the umbrella an inch at a time I managed to learn two things. First that slow and steady usually prevails over the Attila the Hun approach. Secondly I have learned to appreciate the dining difficulties of the Giant Anaconda (Eunectes murinus) especially if it were attempting to ingest a Volks Wagon Beetle (Das Auto insectus).

      Perhaps the one activity that I look forward most to, when the weather places me on virtual “house arrest”, is returning to writing more informative articles and posts for the forum. Over the spring/summer season I have managed to acquire several nice additions to the collection some with a good deal of rarity associated to them. Writing blogs is an enjoyable pastime that I fit into my day piecemeal, as time permits, but they tend to lack much in the way of informative material. My series, “Collecting the Periphery” , which I intend to continue with, was an attempt to inform and educate the reader in regard to items that were associated to the military aspect of collecting, yet slightly on the fringe. Other blogs were simply my observations and peculiar slant on the world in which I live both in reality and in my imagination (such as News from the Home Office). Therefore in an attempt to both inform and educate the reader and at the same time keep this issue of the “News from the Home Office” as trivial as possible I’ll now discuss the title of this blog.



      The Perfect Darth Vader Voice





      James Earl Jones made the voice of the Star Wars antagonist, Darth Vader, iconic not only to the movie itself but to the very essence of Sci-Fi villainy. As a bit of Star War trivia, “Luke, I am your father”, was never in any of the movies, but has become acceptable as such by many of the uninitiated into the world of the science fiction aficionado. You may lack the deep voice of Mr. Jones but here are a few tricks that may amuse some, ok, maybe one of your friends or at least get puzzled looks from your grand daughters if they are under 8 years old such as mine. Find a Pringles Potato Chip tube or a mailing tube with one end, or bottom, still on. Place the open end over the open end, and breathe heavily through your mouth into the tube. Don’t forget that the inhale and exhale are equally as important here. Exhale forcefully and inhale more forcefully but not as long in duration as you exhale. Now in your deepest voice say the erroneous phrase, “Luke I am your father” into the tube. Use this phrase as it is the most recognized and will also irritate the die-hard Star Wars fans within ear-shot. Here’s the most important part, a trade secret of the annoying nerds who love to imitate Darth Vader. Pronounce each word as if the individual word was on a pedestal. Also emphasize the vowels. For example (note the letters in bold), “Luke...I...am...your...father”.

      Note: If you are a single male this probably won’t help you find a woman. If on the other hand it does...marry that gal; she’s perfect.

      Never let it be said that you can’t learn something and get dating advice at the same time on the GMIC.

      In your face “Match.com”!

      Regards
      Brian




    2. Brian Wolfe
      What Women Don’t Understand (about Men)


      Originally I was going to write a blog titled “What I know About Women”; forty five minutes passed and the screen was just as vacant as my sixth-coffee-caffeine-induced-comatose stare. It was at this time that I realized I had exhausted the full extent of my knowledge in that field of research. True, a title such as “What I Know About Women” followed by a blank page would not only be quite humorous but at the same time sadly accurate. Lesser men would have been deterred by this revelation from continuing along these lines of exploration into the human condition but not yours truly. No, I simply decided to write about “What Women Know About Men”. Ha! Much easier I said to myself and poured yet another cup of coffee. By this time I had the shakes from a little too much caffeine so after wiping up the spilled coffee and the bottom of the wet cup (see, men can be trained my wife would love to interject here) thereby eliminating the coffee ring on the desk, I continued. The subject, what women know about men, would have to withstand the scrutiny of any scientific paper in order to be taken seriously. Under that condition I would, of course, have discount what women “think” they know about men as we all know that they almost always miss the point, well a man’s point; which would be the subject of this thesis after all. Let me ponder this for a moment...











      More blank screen, more coffee, can no long see straight, bright spots of light in front of my eyes. Brain stuck on “I Got You Babe” over and over. Oh, my God I’m in the movie “Ground Hog Day”. Need sleep, mind clearer in the morning.

      Ah, the next morning and a revelation.













      I poured myself the first coffee of the day, no I learned nothing from the previously evening, and sat down in front of my computer and typed the title of this month’s blog, What Women Don’t Understand (About Men) .

      Even in my youth I realized that women were incapable, for the most part, of understanding men. For example most women don’t “get” the Three Stooges”. Understanding the Three Stooges is much like understanding the principals of Zen Buddhism. To understand either concept one must stop looking and allow Zen or Stoogeness to wash over you and then you can become one with the Stoogeness. Simple? Right? Obviously not according to any women I’ve known and the few unwary enough to accept my proposal of marriage. The other area of entertainment seemingly beyond the acceptance of their gender is Dr. Who. What’s there not to get about Dr. Who? I’ve been a Whoist, as they now call the fans of the good time lord, for decades and “getting it” has never really entered into my mind. The greatest part about Dr. Who is the exchange between a male Dr. Who fan and his girlfriend, or his wife. It’s usually best to have either one or the other. If that is not your situation then it is definitely best the two don’t ever meet. She asks, “What do you see in Dr. Who? To which you reply, “What?” She repeats “Who”. You say, “What are you talking about?” “Who” she replies, to which you say “You; I said what are you talking about”. Usually this results in her telling you to never mind, it no longer matters, knowing this could go on all night... with luck.

      When it comes to attending gun and militaria shows they seem to be completely lost. Women can’t understand why men will get up at 04:30 on a Sunday morning, drive to their buddy’s house and then travel several hours to stand in line in order to be the first through the door of the show all in a blinding snow storm. Especially when she can’t get you out of bed in time to drive to her mother’s, on Mother’s Day, for dinner with her family. Ok, that one should be self-evident.

      Most of this month’s blog was arrived at due to the renovations to my new office. Women seem to think that you should sweep and wash the floor and dust down the walls of an empty room before you start to bring in large cabinets. What’s with that? The cabinets are going to cover much of the floor and even the walls so who’s going to see if the floor was dusty before the cabinets went in? Then there’s the crazy idea that you should repair all of the nail holes and small damages to the walls and repaint. Don’t they realize that’s why you frame all of those huge photos, prints and documents? They’re great for covering up these so called defects. You can choose the correct width of framed picture in accordance to the spacing of the damage to the wall. It’s brilliant!

      I’ll wrap this blog up with the one question that no man would seldom dignify with an answer, though I shall not shy away from doing so here. Question: “Why would you need a beer fridge in your office”?

      Really? To keep the secretaries happy. Why else?










      Cheers

      Brian

    3. Brian Wolfe
      The Great and Unavoidable War


      On the eve of the beginning of the First World War we are blessed, or cursed depending on your point of view, with many new and old documentaries dealing with the Great War. Of course originally it was referred to as the “Great War” because we had not yet realized that we enjoyed the carnage so much that we started to number them. Finally after years of waiting and countless boring and pointless Olympics, FIFA, NFL, NHL, baseball, basket ball games etc. wasting good research time filling up the television we will have our moment of glory as these documentaries and discussions about the First World War are presented. Before someone inevitably does a spit take spraying their favourite beer all over their computer screens I shall offer an apology regarding my comment about sports games being pointless. Of course there is a point. As far back as the days of ancient Rome it was recognized that presenting sports games not only entertained but distracted the unwashed masses, the plebeians as it were, from seeing what was actually taking place around them. So for those who may have the attention span of a squirrel, that is to say easily distracted, I have apologized for my rudeness in pointing it out.
      Oh, look, something shiny!

      Now that I’ve had my fun, I’ll move on to the topic for discussion which is, as the title suggests, whether the Great War was indeed avoidable, as many contest, or an unavoidable consequence resulting from a complex and perhaps naive culture of the times.

      Often, over the years, I’ve either read or heard it said that the First World War was totally avoidable. The only war that is avoidable is the one we have yet to have. You can’t avoid something that has already happened; it’s like saying that a vehicle accident could have been avoided. How we often have heard that one; though it does seems to make sense unless you take into account everything that occurred from the start of the day up to and including the point of impact. Position of the sun, time of the day, speed and...was that a squirrel? We can take precautions to avoid an accident or steps not to repeat another mishap and with a little luck prevent the accident that we haven’t had but the one we have experienced, as they say, is history.

      If we could travel back in time to the turn of the twentieth century what would we find? What was the political and social atmosphere of the day?
      France was still stinging over the loss of territory to Germany as a result of the Franco Prussian War and still in distrust of Britain, Germany and Russia due to their alliance against Napoleon. The British were embroiled in a very unpopular war in South Africa and was being criticised for their involvement by just about everyone outside of their own Empire. The Russians had been a pain in the behind of the British and the French in the Crimea and through their involvement in adding to the hatred of the British Raj in India through Afghanistan resulting in the Indian Mutiny of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence?). Fear and distrust were the watch words of the day. It would be quite accurate to suggest that this period in history was not unlike the Cold War of post WW II times, which was experienced by many of the older members here at GMIC.

      Add to this atmosphere of international paranoia an arms race and we have what modern man would recognize as the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s. The biggest difference being that no one had the common sense to back down. Not to get too side tracked, but I often wonder who the real hero of the Cuban Missile Crises really was. While President Kennedy rightfully prevented the installation of missiles by potentially hostile parties in the very back yard of the U.S.A. it was the Soviet withdrawal that actually prevented an all out war. It really hurts to have to say that and it flies in the face of everything we have learned through decades of James Bond movies.

      Back to the topic at hand...darn squirrels. The British had the greatest navy which bothered the Germans considerably and especially the Kaiser, who was the head of the German navy. It would seem that the German government controlled many things in the country but it was the Kaiser who held sway over things military and in particular the German navy. To be fair, the British naturally had the largest navy, after all when you have an empire upon which the sun never sets it only stands to reason that you need a large navy to hold it. The Kaiser feared that the British would use their large navy to control German commerce on the high seas and could threaten the German Naval ports in Europe as well. So the best way to prevent this from happening was to not only match the British but do them one better or even two or three better. Naturally the British couldn’t let the Germans maintain a large navy right in their back yard (see Cuban Missile Crisis) so it was a situation of naval one-ups- man-ship.

      While the boys were busy building bigger and better boats, not to mention a lot of them, the diplomats were doing what they do best, diplomacy. Early in the new century (1905) Japan had defeated the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, destroying most of Russia’s Pacific fleet and wiping out the Baltic fleet as they steamed to the aid of the Pacific fleet. The Japanese had made an unannounced pre-emptive strike on Port Arthur destroying the Russian Navy stationed there (can anyone say Pearl Harbour). This left Russia looking for an ally and since Britain had allied herself with Japan Russia turned to France for an alliance. France needed the large military might of Russia in order to offer two fronts to Germany in the chance Germany was to attack France. France also distrusted the British who had been their mortal enemies far back in time to the day when the British had captured Joan of Arc and some cleaver lad decided to burn her at the stake as a witch, rather than imprisoning her as the solidifying or rallying point of the French army. Smart move, now you’ve created a martyr! Then there was the little matter of the Seven Years War and the loss to Britain of Canada and that little matter of the Battle of Waterloo.

      German diplomats couldn’t just let things alone either and attempted, as did the British to ally themselves to anyone who would consider it. Even a British/German alliance had been tossed about for a while. In the end Germany allied with Austria Hungary, France with Russia and Russia with Serbia. The British made up with France and formed an alliance and in the end the public must have been quite confused. Just when the comedians in the British music halls had developed ripping racist jokes about the French, their cheese and wine and they had to change their material to include poor imitations of German accents and making jokes about bratwurst sausages und beer.

      Europe was poised on the brink of disaster and not unlike a row of dominos was just waiting for the first domino to be tipped over. Who at that time would have thought that the whole thing would be set in motion by a single pistol shot in Sarajevo by a Bosnian youth on 28 July 1914?

      Was the whole war avoidable? When looking back and knowing what we know now one would be tempted to answer in the affirmative. However, as we today are blind about what is just about to happen and the effects of our actions on the future so were those people at the turn of the twentieth century. I submit that the First World War was, due to the times, unavoidable. It’s much like this. What are you going to do right after that giant meteor that’s heading towards earth strikes us early next month?

      Oh, sorry I wasn’t supposed to tell you that...look, over there...a squirrel.

      Regards
      Brian




    4. Brian Wolfe
      Collecting the Periphery – Part 4

      In February 2012 I started on a series of blogs dealing with the collecting of items that didn’t really fall within the usual collecting parameters of military yet where on the fringe, or periphery, of that field. Originally I thought to begin with The London County Council (LCC) School Attendance Medals. I will admit that this was the only topic that came to mind that fit the category for which I was aiming and therefore was intended to be somewhat of a “one off” entry. After looking through the collection, in drawers long forgotten, I found several examples that fit into the area of collecting the periphery. So I decided to begin with some of those confident that I would soon exhaust the subject and armed with the LCC School Attendance Medals as my back up I waded in.

      Some of the topics touched on in past blogs were, Japanese Red Cross Medals, Women’s Voluntary Service Medals, Life Saving Medals and Germany’s Mother’s Crosses, to name a few. It seemed that the more I dug around in the collection the more topics I found, always shoving the School Attendance Medals to the back of the class, so-to-speak; which coincidently is where I found myself for most of my formal education. So almost two and a half years later I am finally getting around to my original subject;

      “The London County Council School Attendance Medals”.

      A standardized education system was introduced to Britain in 1870 in the form of an official Education Act. With this came the requirements for the creation of School Boards. Prior to this time the education of British children was pretty much a hit and miss proposition with attendance being non-compulsory. With the use of child labour and the need for families to bring as much funding into the home as possible the value of an education, any formal education, was seen as an unnecessary luxury. The government of the day saw a good basic education for all children would produce citizens who could read, write, and understand the history, geography and, to a point, politics of the country. Then, as today, it was recognized that an educated population was more beneficial to the country than merely an uneducated population mainly suited to manual labour. Though this was to prove to be somewhat a double edged sword as better educated workers began to form trade unions and demands for better work conditions and higher wages were put forward, sometimes violently so. I will be posting a short article on the General Strike of 1926 in the main section of the forum under the British Police section at a later date.

      Some of the regulations set out by the Education Act of 1870 besides the standardization of the education system were, mandatory attendance with non-attendance being punishable by law and a grant system for the running of the schools based on daily attendance.

      I believe that here in Ontario Canada the grants were still based on daily attendance at least until the 1950s and possibly the 1960s, when this was replaced by an “enrolment system” whereby as long as you could drag your little monster to school and enroll him or her the government would fund the school. Attendance was still mandatory though there was the option of “Home Schooling”.

      Returning to the 1870’s; it was decided that there needed to be a reward system aimed at the children to encourage daily attendance. Many school boards implemented a reward system where the child would earn picture cards for perfect attendance as well as medals for regular attendance for a whole school year.


      The London County Council school board did not implement their award system as early as many other school boards and commenced their program in 1886. In order to qualify for the medal the child needed 100% attendance with even an unavoidable absence due to illness being sufficient enough for the child to be disqualified. The system was so strict that even the headmaster’s word that the child had perfect attendance was not acceptable; it required a certificate signed by the school managers. I would suspect that the school managers depended greatly on the honesty of the headmaster to supply accurate data, rather than the managers actually verifying, on a daily basis, that the child was actually in attendance. Even with these stringent regulations there were a great number of medals awarded every year.

      The first of the LCC medals featured the bust of Queen Victoria and were struck in white metal which was suspended from a bronze plaque displaying the date. The pupil’s name was engraved on the back. In 1890 it was decided to offer medals stuck in different metals to signify those whose attendance went unbroken for longer periods of time. For years 1 to 3 it was white metal, 4 and 5 was in bonze and 6 through 9 years of perfect attendance the medal was gilt. Later on a 10th and even 11th year medal was offered in silver but according to some reports the only sliver 11th year medal struck was a specimen from Spink in competition for the contract; no pupils were ever awarded the 11th year medal.




      Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 a new medal was struck featuring the bust of King Edward VII. There were some changes to the reverse of this medal but basically the design remained the same as the previous design. The obverse changed in 1910 as far as the wording and this can be seen in the photos below.

      As time went on the regulations, as they applied to medal qualifications, were lightened somewhat and up to two days absence due to illness was allowed, with a note from the parents verifying the reason for the absence. Later, it was decided that the school board needed to recognize that children who were ill were best kept home in order to lessen the chances of a class-wide infection. Therefore, children who were ill for an extended period of time were not disqualified from receiving the medal.






      1911 brought with it a new monarch, King George V, following the passing of his father King Edward VII. The first pattern of medal was similar to those from past monarchs. Up to this time the medals had been 1½ inches but a new design was proposed and past that completely changed the look of the medal.

      The new medal was struck in bronze, suspended from a red, white and black ribbon in the military style, with the suspension bar reading LCC and the qualifying year shown on a clasp on the ribbon. For each additional qualifying year there would be a clasp added to the medal. From what I have found these “additional” clasps did not have the date specified and used a laurel branch design. The recipient’s name was shown on the medals edge rather than on the reverse and the size was reduced to 1¼ inches. There was a large medal also offered in 1912 for those who qualified under the old system, however these are very scarce with only 200 ever being awarded. The new smaller medals were issued throughout the “war years” and the last year this was offered was 1920.





      In the end the LCC had the longest “run” of any of the other participating school boards having used the medals system for thirty years. One of the exciting parts of collecting these medals is that at times you can also pick up the original boxes and better yet sometimes you can get a series that was awarded to one student (see photo below).










      In the above set you can see the change of design between 1909 and 1910 (Edward VII) and the George V large version of the 1911 as well as small version of the 1911/1912 medals. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to collect groups of medals that span monarchs as well as including design changes involving the same monarch, so this set really “spoke” to me.

      I hope you found this blog interesting and it will encourage you to look outside of collecting only military medals, or at least consider looking into it.

      Regards
      Brian







    5. Brian Wolfe
      At the Crossroads Again!

      For the vast majority of collectors collecting is a passion, an obsession; some would even call it a sickness, however, those are the people whose opinions are completely unworthy of consideration. They are like vegans at a BBQ telling me that if I knew where that steak came from I would not eat it. First of all Ive been a butcher in one of my varied past work experiences so I know where meat comes from and second I tell them that I see myself as a non-practising vegetarian, I support their views in principal but shut up and pass me another hamburger...please (I always like to be civil if not completely supportive). Im also a supporter of PETA as long as that stands for People Eating Tasty Animals. My perfect meal would be steak and shrimp with BBQ chicken as a chaser just to be fair to the animal kingdom in covering all of the bases of earth, sky and water. Im nothing if not fair...oh yes, and civil. By the way I do know that chickens dont fly, or at least not very well.

      Now that we have eliminated the opinions of those annoying people who fail to understand us, be they friends or spouses, we can move on, even though, for some unexplained reason I am getting hungry.

      When we start out collecting there seems to be a never ending supply of whatever it is that we have decided to base our collection on. Take medals for example, British medals for the sake of this discussion. You go along building a collection until you have almost all of the common specimens then you realize that unless you are collecting to a particular regiment and want to continue adding to your collection the next level is going to be quite expensive. Going from a WWI Trio at around $195.00 to a Crimea 1854 Sebastopol and Turkish Crimea 1855 pair at $795.00 can take ones breath away. (Current prices provided by Tanya Ursual of Medals of War)

      So there you are at the proverbial crossroads of collecting (and the theme of this blog) with decisions to make. Do you take the jump to the higher level of collecting, continue on adding the same old/ same old or change collecting direction completely. Ive managed to come to this crossroads many times. Which way to go? Spend more money or change direction? Decisions, decisions, what to do? Lucky for me I can make such decisions easily as I almost always do both. Unfortunately Ive hit quite a bump in the road in that is as disastrous as the feared crossroads. No its not the advancing years of old age because I shall collect until my children pull the plug, pry the keyboard (eBay) from my cold dead fingers and nail the lid on the coffin. Actually my dear wife, Linda, said that one cannot let age determine how much we do or even what we do, within physical limits of course. Mixed Martial Arts is probably not in my future, nor Olympic javelin catching, but as to collecting its full steam ahead and the devil take the hind most.

      Im actually out of room in the study for any additions to the collection that take up much space. So I am left with a decision to make, sell some items (like thats going to happen), stop collecting (seriously?), take over a second room (a possibility, one is available) or mainly collect smaller items such as medals. I do have a good deal of drawer space left for medals in the units I have built for that purpose. On the other hand that other room is looking more and more inviting all of the time. As you can see even collectors who have been collecting for a good number of years still find that they are standing at the crossroads from time to time.

      I do have some advice for younger collectors, those who may still not be too deeply in debt to the dark side of collecting, to the point where their collection is no longer referred to as eclectic but rather just a jumble and bits of odds and ends.

      Always set goals.

      Ive always done this, however once a goal has been met and new ones started your collection will still become eclectic but at least not a hoard as might be expected of a hermit living next to the city dump. I set my goal for the British black powder firearms section of the collection starting with the Brown Bess and ending with the pre .303 cal. Martini Henrys. True somewhere along the line I did add a Bren gun and then an A1L1 FN, which still has Linda wondering how those last two fit into the collection. My only argument was that this section of the collection was a Brown Bess to Bren collection which was a great argument (to my way of thinking) until I purchased the FN then that hastily fabricated rational fell apart rather rapidly. Setting goals will assist you in staying on course and will end up costing less than collecting whatever comes along because you can afford it at the time. Its perfectly alright to have more than one goal at any given time within reason. For example you can be collecting British medals, German medals and cavalry swords at the same time but not also antique clown noses, left handed salt and pepper shakers and high compression muffler bearings. Its just too much. Keep it simple and focus.

      Costs should not set the goal of a collection.

      Dont let costs be the determining factor in the area you are collecting. By this I mean dont get to a point where there are still a good number of specimens left to collect but the price is getting too high. Still collect but not as much; were looking at quality/rarity verses quantity. Just because a Military Cross is a lot more money than a BWM should not be the only reason for changing direction. Sure if you are ready for a change then do so but if it is based on the cost then you need to slow down and add a new specimen when you can afford it and dont purchase other material at the same time.

      Research, research, research.

      Part of your collecting activities should be researching and studying the subject of your chosen field of collecting. There is a wealth of information out there in the form of books and on the internet. Take full advantage of them. Nothing is worse than a fellow with a large collection yet lacking in the knowledge of the history of the items themselves. Studying the background of the item in question will not only build a more interesting collection and a more interesting you but will help to ease the temptation to add more and more lower end items which prevents you from adding the more expensive and crucial items. Soon the addition of knowledge will become as crucial to your collection as the items themselves. Warning: While I said you will become more interesting it will probably only be so to fellow collectors. Dont expect the plebeians to understand.


      Beware the Card.

      Never and I mean never collect on the card. Credit cards are great and as long as you pay them off monthly everything will be alright. The pit fall is (and the banks are counting on this) if you purchase an item on the credit card then make the minimum payment at months end because there is something else you want you are dancing on a mine field and chances are that you will end up with the nick-name stumpy; a fellow who is always just short of being able to pay the credit card bill.


      Disposable income.

      This is a tough one and ties into the next and last bit of advice. What is disposable income? Thats the money you have left over after EVERYTHING ELSE in your life has been paid off for the month. Its money you can afford to tie up, perhaps for the rest of your life. True you can always liquidate your collection when the need arrives, if it arrives, but at what loss. Youre probably making most of your purchases at market so when it comes to selling you will most likely be looking at wholesale values. If you need to dump the lot as soon as possible you will not likely get much more than twenty-five cents on the dollar invested. Only a fool thinks that everything he or she touches turns to gold, most of the time when you need to sacrifice a collection what you will realize out of it will be more akin to something you would spread on a garden. A sad but true fact of life.



      Theres more to life than your collection.

      I do not want to sound like one of, or both of, your parents but far too many collectors end up spending their limited free time on the collection rather than on family and friends. Collections come and go and so will family and friends if you ignore them long enough. This is getting preachy but better you hear it from me than a divorce lawyer.


      In summary.

      Set some goals, stay the course and remember that there will always be more material out there to collect than there is money to purchase it. Most of all dont forget what is really important in life.

      Happy collecting.
      Regards
      Brian
    6. Brian Wolfe
      GMIC’s Tenth Anniversary

      Eight years ago my friend in India, and fellow GMIC member, Samir, strongly suggested that I look into this forum with the intention of possibly joining. It hardly seems like eight years have passed by since I joined, but the numbers don’t lie; eight years and not one regret. True there have been times when I have found myself biting my lip for want of making a curt reply to someone’s remarks but calmer emotions took over and I refrained from adding fuel to the fire. This calming down process has taken several days in some cases but it is a matter of the ends justifying the means (in this case time).

      I’m not one to belong to very many forums, finding my “free” time limited; a phenomenon that has only increased since my retirement from public life last autumn. I have, on the other hand visited several other forums and researched material on some of my collectables found there. What I have found on some of these forums, not all being military orientated, was rather an eye opener. Compared with the GMIC some forums have an over abundance of rude, crude and lewd members, sort of “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” of the internet. Some forums seem to have no set rules while others are quite draconian in there enforcement.

      That’s not to say there are no rules here, as there are and somewhat restrictive if one was to enforce them to the extreme. However that holds true with any law or legislation anywhere in the free world. What I have observed in the past and present is an overwhelming sense of gentlemanly conduct demonstrated by the membership. Only on rare occasions has it been necessary that the rule book be taken off the shelf, the thick layer of dust blown from the cover and the “Riot Act” read.

      The atmosphere generated, in my opinion, by our Chairman, Nick and the rest of the founding members have galvanized this group of collectors into what can only be described as a true internet “community”. It has been said that it takes a community to raise a child and this holds true here. It takes the whole community working together to foster this feeling of cohesiveness and desire to help one another to enjoy our hobby.

      In closing, I would like to wish the Gentleman’s Military Interest Club a happy 10th Anniversary and the hope for many more to come. Further to this I would like to thank our Chairman, Nick, for following through with his brain-child and developing what can only be seen as one of the top military interest forums on the internet today. Congratulations, Nick, on the 10th Anniversary of your successful creation.

      Regards
      Brian

    7. Brian Wolfe
      Femoraliaphobia

      I might be famous as the one person to start a phobia all by myself and I have deemed it to be Femoraliaphobia.

      For years one of my many obsessions which includes a need to check the weather forecast, always knowing what time it is and the need to have everything in neat rows has been to create drawers in everything I build in the shop. This coming year I plan to build another kitchen table, this time longer than the eight foot one we presently have, at least a twelve footer, and I’ve included drawers in the drawing. Years ago my Amish ancestors always included a drawer in the end of the table, where the elder sat this, I have been told, was a Bible drawer. I’m thinking silver ware etc. but still a functional and quite practical application, even if I do say so myself.

      While on the topic of the Bible, it says in the Good Book “...go forth and multiply...”. We had five children, all married and in the process of adding to the population of the world. One would think that an eight foot long table should suffice but at times I think the kids are taking the Bible a bit too literally; this has caused the need for a longer, twelve foot table. Of course not only do I digress from the subject of this blog but I do so in jest.

      Yes, I’ll put drawers in anything and everywhere I can. I once built a table for one of the washrooms that fit in between the wall and the bathroom vanity. My wife was less than impressed to find that not only was there a drawer in the front of the table there was one in each end as well, even though they could never be pulled out due to the wall on one side and the vanity on the other. She of course needed to know why; she is a bit of a “needy” woman, always needing to know why, in her words, “would anyone in any imaginable universe even think of doing ...(fill in the blank)?” My answer is always to paraphrase Sir Edmund Hillary in that I did it because I could. This makes me once again digress with the thoughts of Sir Edmund Hillary at the summit of Everest and never having his photo taken to commemorate the event. He took a photo of his Sherpa holding his ice axe but never had his own photo taken. Did he have fears that Tenzing Norgay would take off with the camera and run to the nearest pawn shop? I suppose one could argue that there may have been a pawn shop as close as 29,029 feet away, albeit straight down. You really need to work on those trust issues Sir Edmund.

      Sorry for the side tracking, I’m back now. I believe that most of the world’s problems revolves around drawers, either the over abundance of them or the lack of drawers in some cases. In the past some countries obviously had too many drawers and found most were empty. Hannibal is a good example, too many drawers and not enough to fill them, so he went to Rome because they had more things than drawers to put them in and brought stuff back for the drawers of Carthage. Everyone was happy until the cabinet makers of Rome made more drawers and Rome wanted their things back and therefore went to Carthage to get their stuff back to fill their new drawers. They liked Carthage so much they stayed in the area after they applied salt to the lands where the city used to exist, as a biodegradable weed control, or so I surmise.

      Almost everything should be kept or could be kept in drawers. Socks, in drawers; silverware, in drawers; handguns, in drawers; cats, well perhaps not everything. I like to keep most of my collection in drawers as to display all of it in display cases would take up the whole house, seriously. So as I finished up the second drawer cabinet of the year my dear wife expressed a deep concern about my obsessive behaviour. She thinks I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which is sheer madness because first of all it should be CDO because that is the correct order the letters should be in, and secondly, ... alright I don’t really have an argument. I think she is the one with physiological problems and I have even come up with a clinical term for it, Femoraliaphobia; a fear of drawers. Her argument is that as soon as I build more drawer cabinets I can’t stand not filling them and that starts the collecting mania once again. Yah, like collecting could ever be considered a mania; sometime I wonder why I even try to have a conversation with her. Women! They’re always bringing reason and common sense into every discussion.

      Just to prove her wrong I went into the study, at her request, and counted the number of drawers holding my collection. I only have 199 drawers, all in beautiful neat rows. It’s not like I have 200 drawers or anything, now that might be considered obsessive. Not by me mind, but by some.

      So there you have it. I may have accidently caused my wife to develop Femoraliaphobia. If she decides to seek help I can build her some drawers to keep the files in, after all most things should be kept in drawers.

      I’m off to surf eBay now as I noticed there were some empty drawers in one cabinet.

      Keep smiling and never stop collecting.

      Regards
      Brian






    8. Brian Wolfe

      Quoth The Raven.

      By Brian Wolfe,

      Quoth the Raven Nevermore.

      There are times as I sit in my study, usually later in the evening, I feel a bit like the narrator in Poe’s “The Raven”

      Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
      Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
      While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
      As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
      ''Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door-
      Only this, and nothing more.'

      The exception being that the raven in my case is a Nazi eagle desk ornament and the “forgotten lore” attestation papers of Canadian and British servicemen of the First World War. Perhaps it is advancing age that makes me more pensive, or simply maudlin, but I start to think about these people listed on the official documents more deeply than simply an addition to the seemingly ever-growing collection. I look at the drawers and drawers (literally drawers and drawers) of medals and the filing cabinet of documents, some supporting the medals collection and some standing as the only record of passed souls and think how much this is like a morgue. The last repository of the earthly remains of soldiers long past. Walls festooned with weapons, the tools of war wielded by men much braver than me and think that it is a shame that this may be all there is left of these heroes.

      In some rare cases I have been put in the position of being the custodian of almost all of the family history of a soldier; past into my keeping by people who no longer care about their own roots. A sad comment on humanity as a person without knowledge of their roots is like a ship without a rudder. Still, this lack of concern on their part has allowed me to get to know some of the soldiers on a much deeper level than a simple engraved medal or statistics on an attestation document.

      One case involves two brothers who both went to war; one married the other a single man. As fate would have it the married brother never returned. The unmarried brother returned and took over the duties of his brother raising the children and looking after his brother’s wife until the end of their years well into their eighties. One may look upon this today as being a bit odd but it was a different time and responsibility for others seen in a different light. If you were to see the photo of them sitting by the seaside well into their eighties, a true loving couple, you would not criticize their decision. In fact what right do any of us have to pass judgement on those who went through the horrors of the Great War and suffered the grief and losses they experienced?

      Another case deals with brothers-in-law, one starting in the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1914 and then being killed in 1918 while serving with the Bedfordshire Regiment. The other, a younger man, earned his Aviation Certificate as a Lieutenant in 1918 and flew as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. After the War he became an aviation engineer designing and developing aircraft through World War Two and well beyond.

      The last I will mention in this article concerns a gentleman whose failing marriage found him living in a hotel when he enlisted. Some of the first photos of him, in the collection, show him at work as a mason. Later on we see him just as he arrives in England. In later photos one can see the effect the war is having on him. He is no longer the healthy-looking young man but a gaunt worn out old chap who will die shortly after the last photo that was taken in 1917. Letters to his son and beloved daughter bear no mention of their mother, his estranged wife, a harbinger of the resentment and hatred that was festering in her that would later be spread to the children resulting in their rejection of his very memory. She may have held a great deal of animosity toward her husband however it is evident by the government documentation that this did not extend to her acceptance of the war widows pension. As the years past and the children aged the amount of the pension decreased as did any feelings of good will toward our poor soldier even from his children and eventually his grand children. I purchased his Memorial Cross and BWM from his grand-daughter and then received boxes and boxes of photos and documents dating back well into the mid 1800’s, at no extra cost. The choice I had was to either accept the material or it was going to the land fill (garbage).

      In some cases my study has become the repository of the only memories left of these lost souls with me being its curator. Stories cut short by war, others prevented from the opportunity to correct their mistakes in life and other paths changed forever. Stories once investigated, beyond the veneer of the serving soldier, into the deeper aspect of these real people and their personal trials and tribulations begins to forge a bond between researcher and subject. They become a true part of your life and to write their stories brings up a conflict somewhere between the desires to honour their memory and betrayal of a confidence shared.

      Looking back at the German eagle stand-in for Poe’s Raven I can’t help but hope its famous statement is a prophecy regarding war - “Nevermore”.

      Regards
      Brian


    9. Brian Wolfe

      The Shill's Revenge

      By Brian Wolfe,

      The Shill’s Revenge

      A few days ago, over in the Japan Section, a discussion was started regarding the use of “shills”. If you have never visited the Japan Section you should do so, it is quite interesting and quickly becoming the place to go for researching Japanese medals and decorations.

      A “shill”, in case you didn’t know, is a person who is employed by an auctioneer to drive up the bids so that the item sells for more than it normally would have.

      Years ago and before the internet I used to dabble in antiques, buying, repairing and reselling them. This involved a lot of evenings spent in auction houses and estate sales. One auctioneer in particular kept several burly rotund fellows employed to move the items onto the stage and off again after the item had been auctioned off. When not engaged in this activity they would sit in large armchairs which were perched on folding tables like well fed yet dishevelled scavengers, at the rear of the bidder’s area. If you watched them closely one would always make an indiscrete bid if the item was not reaching the bid that the auctioneer was trying to reach. Remember, the higher the final bid the more the auction house profits in their “cut”. Now, with the advent of the internet and the auction sites available, more people than ever are placing bids and “attending” auctions from the comfort of their own homes. With this new venue comes the return of the old practise of employing shills, though in a slightly different way.

      Today, regardless of the rules set out by the online auction sites, people are able to cheat through several means if they are inclined to do so. Spouses can each have an account and bid on the other partner’s items to run the bid higher. Other adult family members and friends can also perform these duties not even to mention the person who will set up two separate memberships and bid on their own items. I’m not sure if this is still the case but eBay used to charge extra to place a reserve bid on an item assuring the seller would get a minimum amount for the item that would be acceptable to the seller. Using one of these underhanded means circumvents this “legal” reserve bid option and at no extra cost; which finally brings me to the meat of my story.

      There is a local collector that I was acquainted with through our wives who worked together. This fellow used to spend each and every day on eBay and bought and sold with a passion that surpassed the border between fanaticism and a sick obsession straight to the lunatic fringe. He had taken an early retirement for the armed forces and had a small pension so this allowed him the luxury, if not the funds, to sit in front of the computer screen all day long.

      He had approached me several times to place bids on his items at what he considered a reserve bid, without having to pay eBay for their service. Each time he asked I declined.

      As a bit more background information, he collected WWI medals named to members of his old regiment. One of the arrangements he made with me, that I agreed to, was that if he were away and not near a computer I would bid on items he was interested in so that he would not miss out on them. While he was away one time there was a BWM named to a Sergeant from his regiment offered for sale. I waited until near the end and not seeing his eBay name as a bidder placed a maximum bid high enough to assure I would “win” it for him. Unknown to me he had access to a computer and had been watching the medal himself. Being a paranoid and rather untrusting person he placed a very high maximum bid just before the auction closed (sniped) and won the item. He then wanted me to plead with the seller, a well known dealer here in Ontario, Canada, that he should only have to pay the price that my first bid would have come to and not the final bid. He even had the nerve to ask that I pose as his wife bidding on the item as his birthday gift. Talk about one sick individual! I flatly refused to do this. A day or two later I was contacted by the seller (remember we, my wife and I, are quite well known to this dealer) and asked for the facts as he had spun her several odd stories. I told her that she should ignore them and that I would purchase the medal if he didn’t want to pay the amount he had bid. Needless to say this fellow was enraged at my decision. He paid the deal the agreed upon price of his final bid. I didn’t tell him but I would have let him have the medal for what I paid if he hadn’t purchased it. The difference between the two bids was only twenty dollars. Actually I still considered him a friend at that time, (talk about gullible), and would have gifted the medal to him, had he not been such an ass.

      Shortly after this he asked me once again to act as a shill on a couple of auctions he had going. One was an individual medal and the other was a small South African War group. By this time I had had it with him so I said I would do it under these conditions. He would tell me his “reserve” bid that he wanted me to assure and I would place a maximum bid higher than that. Then if my bid was the winning bid he would have to actually follow through and sell the item or items to me. In the end I did indeed win both auctions and I had placed my maximum well above what he wanted as I really did want these in my collection. I made the payment through Pay Pal and then, he went ballistic. He didn’t want to let me have the items and said he would refund my Pay Pal costs. I gave him a choice, either hand over the medals or explain to eBay why he had broken the rules regarding following through with the conditions set out by eBay and also why he was trying to use shills in his auction. I knew the names and eBay user names of two of his friends who were actively acting as shills for him and was ready to burn him. Yes, I am the type of person who, if you piss me off bad enough, will hug you as I pull the pin on the grenade!

      In the end he acquiesced and let me have the medals after telling me what I could do with them. I didn’t follow his suggestion, of course, opting instead to place them in my collection. We haven’t spoken since and that’s alright by me as this is one time revenge, if not justice, was levied on a seller who was using shills.

      Regards
      Brian






    10. Brian Wolfe
      NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS?

      “This coming year I resolve to eat healthier, exercise and take better care of myself in general”, was the mantra of those “grazing” on all sorts of delicacies at the buffet table. It always amazes me how people are able to balance a plate in one hand all the while holding their Long Island Tea or Bloody Mary in the other and still manage to fill their plate to overflowing without allowing even one shrimp escape its fate. I especially like the lady who says that she never eats like this the rest of the year but cannot resist at year-end parties. She never leaves it at that, for some reason, and has to qualify her statement with the ever popular utterance that she only eats healthy foods and especially salads. This leaves me pondering the question; just how much salad must one eat to reach such an impressive girth. Any larger and she would be living in the ocean and dining on krill (also not a member of the plant family).

      Since almost all resolutions are broken before the end of January I’m surprised that anyone makes them at all. Is it an overwhelming residual symptom of the Christmas season to want to be a better person? Or a matter of recognizing that there is room for improvement yet knowing there is no chance of achieving this goal one simply attempts to fool oneself, at least for a brief period of time, into believe this is attainable. I have taken some comfort in one thing I’ve read about making resolutions in that you should take small steps in reaching any self-improvement goals.

      With this in mind I figure the smaller the steps the better and that being the case then it is only logical that the smallest step possible would be no step at all. Since I can’t argue with logic, albeit flawed, I am quite happy to take those measures to self-improvement; that being none. The way I see it is that if I were to be in top shape (pear is a shape but not what I am alluding to) and in excellent heath then I would have been born as someone else. Since I can’t, or couldn’t, have been born as someone else then I am content to remain as I am and save all of the hypocrisy of making resolutions concerning my person health or body shape. My goal in life is to not confuse people; if I were to exercise and be in top shape, and then died, my corpse would look great. People would say, “Look at him, he’s the picture of health, how could this have happened to someone who looks like that?” You can see how confused people might be. On the other hand when I go people will say, “Good God how did he live as long as he did? It’s no wonder he’s dead!” See? No one is confused and the world would be once again a logical and sane place in which to live; all because of me. Here’s a tip: as to a “six pack”, they are still available for purchase at the beer store.

      So this brings me to the really important areas to consider making improvements. This coming year I intend to continue with improvements to the study (aka The Home Office) and the collections themselves. I’ve discussed eliminating my communications collection, which you would think would make my dear wife ecstatic at the prospect of me letting some items go. By now she has come to realize that not only does nature abhor a vacuum but so does a collector and any space left unfilled will only remain so until new collectables can be obtained. And that, my friend, is simply a matter of physics; I can’t be held to task for simply yielding to the laws of nature. I’m only human after all.

      The other area for attention is concerning the GMIC and this may involve you as well. My intention for the coming year is to complete, or at least continue, some of the past posts I’ve started. As well, I would like to research and post much more in depth article-style submissions; some of these are already in the process, though far from compete. I would like to see more members at least going back through their past posts and reviving some of the better submissions. There has to be past posts that really interest you so add a small submission, a substantial addition would be even better, and breath life back into them. This will allow new members a chance to read some excellent posts from our past and perhaps encourage them to stay with us and even become a contributing member.

      There is no hope for my own personal improvement, it’s a lost cause, but perhaps together we can make a great forum even better.

      Here’s wishing you a happy, resolution free, New Year.

      Regards
      Brian


    11. Brian Wolfe

      A Christmas Carol

      By Brian Wolfe,

      A Christmas Carol

      Well, here we are almost Christmas and I still haven’t gotten out to purchase any gifts and to be honest it may not happen this year at all. Ok, you’re probably thinking that my wife is correct in calling me “her cold hearted bastard”. But wait, don’t light the torches, gather up the pitchforks and lead the pheasants on a march to the castle quite yet. Yes, I know I said pheasants; it was just my way of messing with the images of a Frankenstein movie dancing in your heads. I have been making use of the internet and ordering gifts this year.

      Even though I must admit that I like the Mr. Scrooge of the first half of the movie better than the reformed miser of later on. Don’t even get me started on the earlier Mr. Grinch. Both had a greater depth of character at the start of the movies. You might think that I could use a visitation by those three ghosts on Christmas Eve. However, given their unwelcomed and abrupt appearance in the middle of the night they would most likely have the “Dickens” beaten out of them before any good would come of their visit.

      Now dear reader, I am sure you are thinking that I have forgotten the collection and the Home Office in my attempts to remain rational during this maudlin, “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. But take heart my friends as I have mixed in a few purchases for both of these areas along with the gifts for friends and family. The musket collection is getting new custom made slings that will need to be whitened as they are unfinished. All of the Christmas orders are finished in the shop and now I am building a display cabinet/desk for the Home Office.

      Speaking of gifts and family; over the years my family has been very understanding of my manias, mostly regarding my collecting. To be clear that incident involving the catapult and the neighbour’s cat last year was a one off. In my own defence, if you are meant to launch rocks from one of these things wouldn’t you think they would be called a “rockapolt”? Really, it was an understandable misunderstanding.

      A couple of years ago one of my daughters gave me a 1914 EK II as a gift which was a real surprise. This year my dear wife has charged me with the task of purchasing a gift for myself at the next gun show, which is being held tomorrow. We all know how much I hate buying something for the collection at one of the gun shows I attend. I’ll be honest; I couldn’t even type this last sentence with a straight face! Being a dutiful husband I shall acquiesce to my wife’s wishes and force myself to find a suitable gift. Sometimes you just have to be strong and tough it out.

      The weather report for this evening has snow in the forecast so I anticipate that after a long, sleepless and “silent night” the snow will “lay all about, deep and crisp and even”. No fears there as my friend Brian, who attends these local gun shows with me, is driving and he has a monster 4X4 truck so even if “the weather outside is frightful” nothing short of a blizzard will keep us from our destination.

      Now that I shamelessly used other people’s lines and lyrics I will close with these two thoughts.

      This Holiday Season please don’t drink and drive, however, if you are going to drink and drive please leave my name and contact information with your loved ones. I will be happy to give them a generous twenty-five cents on the dollar for your collection. The spirit of Scrooge is smiling down on me at this moment, I can feel it in my heart.

      “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night”.

      Regards
      Brian

      PS: there is a prize for those who find all of the Christmas lines and lyrics in this blog. The prize; I won’t do this again next year. Ho ho ho.





    12. Brian Wolfe
      Visiting the Neighbours

      From time to time family can get on one’s nerves and you just need a change of pace. Somewhere to go that, with luck, proves to you that things at home are not all that bad; that or at least, your own family is not all that dysfunctional after all.

      I believe the same is true with forums. After a while one starts to read posts and think, “Oh, grow up for God’s sake”, “Stop wasting my time” or “You have to be kidding me!”
      We all have our “buttons”, people and posts that irritate the only healthy nerve one has left. You know the types, those you consider post too many subjects at the level of an adolescent school boy or those pompous types who insist on referring to themselves with the word “one” rather than “I”. Now you would think that last example would give one pause to reflect, but it didn’t.

      The catalyst for this blog was not anything here on the GMIC, as you might think would be obvious, but rather from visits to some of our neighbouring forums. It should be said right off that this is not a critique of other military based forums or any particular forum but rather a collection of observations over the years. I (you see I can use that to refer to myself after all) have several interests besides military history, some of which includes geology and paleontology, antiques, archeology and science in general, as well as woodworking and gardening. With all of these interests you would think I spend a lot of time on the internet but not so. For the most part my internet time is spent here on the GMIC, with occasional forays into other territories from time to time. My dear wife spends time on yarn and knitting, as well as quilting and genealogy forums. Talk about boring! Seriously, over the years we have read a lot of rude posts and odd reactions from the forum administrators.

      All forums have their rules, some more extensive than others; the one thing that they all have in common is the requirement to be civil and the, at times, subtle warning that you can be banned if you cross the line too many times. These are all very reasonable to be sure.

      Here’s some of the posts and administration reactions, somewhat paraphrased, but still in the spirit of the exchange.

      My first example:

      A member posted a reply pointing out, rather bluntly but still in a civil manner, that the author of the initial post was wrong.
      Administration replied that the originator of the post was a personal friend and a long –time member and that any further “attacks” would result in the respondent’s dismissal (banning).

      I guess that Administrator should have posted a list of her friends along with the rules so that no one ever questioned them and therefore could avoid being banned.



      ><





      Another case involving several members went as follows:

      Member number one posted that the author of the initial post was wrong and that he should check his facts before making a post. It happened to be a comment about research that member one had published but the posting member was not aware of this.

      Administration banned member one with no explanation.

      Member two asked for the reason for administration’s banning of member one.

      Administration banned member two.

      Member three posted a comment that it seemed a little harsh to ban member two just because he had asked for the reasons behind the banning of member one.

      Member three...yep, banned.

      I was thinking about applying for membership but I figured that would result in me being banned!



      ><





      On yet another forum:

      A member had asked why a suggestion for improving the forum had gone unanswered even though this member had asked it several times on the forum and once in a PM to the Administrator.

      The Administrator finally answered with a warning that if this member continued to harass the membership they could face disciplinary action. I found this strange as the suggestion was a simple enough one that was only directed to the Administrator yet the reply regarded the harassment of the whole membership.

      Talk about confusing. Looks like the best advice here is to ask only once to avoid harassing the membership and being threatened with banishment. Maybe the membership consisted of only the Administrator?



      ><





      In this last example I will need to be very vague because this exchange was so offensive that I can’t give detailed descriptions without the possibility on insulting the reader. One of the strict policies here and on many forums is the avoidance of the topics of politics and or religion. Of course on any military history forum the discussion of the politics of the past is not only unavoidable but perhaps desirable in order to understand the events that took place.

      Member one posted a vase with some inscription on it with a translation and a general comment about the culture of the area from which it came.

      Member two commented that this was not the exact translation as this was his native tongue and that the comment regarding their culture was far from accurate.

      Member one countered that he knew what he was talking about and that member two, let me put it this way, ate the meat of, wore the skins of and cavorted with swine. This was no doubt an attack on the fellows religious views and as you can imagine was met with an unbelievable personal attack, albeit provoked, by member two on member one.

      This went on for several posts until both parties seemed exhausted and stopped posting. As I read this I kept wondering where the administrator was and why he or she was not putting a stop to this. It generated a mix of emotions in me from disbelief to anger. In the end I started to think that perhaps the administrator shared the views of member one. I didn’t check but perhaps member one and the administrator were one and the same.

      That was enough for me to decide that I would avoid this forum in the future as not only was the administration out of line by doing nothing, but also I did not want to be associated with that forum in any way.



      ><









      I’m sure we could all add to this list and I would have posted the topic on the regular forum but it would have been too hard, as you can see, to stay away from breaking our own rules by just relating these horror stories. So now I am (oh how I wanted to say “So now one is”) back from visiting the neighbours and I have only one more thing to say.

      “It’s so good to be back home again.”

      Regards

      Brian

    13. Brian Wolfe
      Remembrance Day, a PPOV

      As November 11 and Remembrance Day approaches many people start to think, for the first time in a year, of the sacrifices so many have and are making for their nations. For those of us in the collecting field there is no need to be reminded of this as I believe we are more than a little aware of what has been given up so that we may enjoy our freedom. For the sake of this blog I am not talking about those who have or are serving and may be members here, as they are in the moment while most of us have never experienced service, either during a conflict or in times of peace. Before continuing I do want to thank the GMIC members both former and current servicemen and women for your service. I wont mention names as that might embarrass some but you know who you are.

      I often wonder just how many people would remember this day, November 11, and what it really means to our way of life if it were not for media coverage and the sale of the poppy. Would we remember such current events as the conflicts in the Middle East if it were not for the nightly news? How many can even begin to name the conflicts since the Korean War? I say this because I wonder how many would jump from the Korean conflict straight to Afghanistan or Iraq missing Viet Nam completely. I speak now of those outside of America, but even that being the case I have to wonder how many Americans go through their day to day routines unaware of the cost of their way of life, and ours for that matter.

      I suppose there is a good case to be made for those on the battle field every night and on weekends at their local paint ball field or video game Tour of Duty not being able to remember real conflicts. After all the trauma of seeing your fellow combatants splattered with paint or a video character shot down and having to wait until a new game is started must be hell. Of course I joke, albeit in a vein of sarcastic reality.

      Perhaps one of the benefits of there being collectors and students of military history, such as we are, is that we are helping to keep the memory of those who served alive. Even though we may be avoided at parties as that fellow who bores everyone with history it prompts people to at least realize there is a history to be remembered.
      Not that the hockey game or baseball scores are not important, (they really arent, I just said that to make the sports jocks feel good), it is history and in this case military history that has shaped our lives today and will for a long time to come.

      On November 11, remember.

      Regards
      Brian
    14. Brian Wolfe
      Enhancing Your Collection

      It’s been a while since I have written and since we last talked I have moved my study and with it the Home Office into new surroundings; same address just a new and better location. This involved new cabinets and displays so it was a lengthy process. In addition to this I decided to retire from public service and the past six months has been spent attempting to wrap up my projects. Although to get them all completed would take another two years as new road connections through forests are limited by budget and in our country a short construction season. Still all has finally come to pass with a few more touches to the study and the unfinished work projects in the capable hands of my replacement I am free to do what I want to do with rest of my life.

      Reading the posts on the GMIC lately I noticed one by Robin talking about the addition of a new Crimea Medal, I’m still envious, and in addition to this the addition of a cigarette card of this medal featuring the same bar. I believe Mervyn mentioned that some members are adding cap badges and other insignia to their medals and medal groups. This is something I have been doing for some time now and I wanted to talk about this interesting augmentation to medal collections as well as other military collectables.

      Below is one drawer of medals where I have added the cap badges to the medals



      I find myself; or rather catch myself, boring family and friends with my collections and constant droning on about history and this battle and that battle and how the breakdown of diplomacy led to one conflict or another. Most of my medal collection is housed in shallow drawers and if there is one thing I’ve noticed is that the average person’s eyes will start to glaze over after the third, and if I’m lucky, the forth drawer of what is perceived as one medal or group of medals after another with little to no differences. In fact I too start to think that there is a certain monotony about a sizable collection of just about anything after a while. If you are at all like me this “monotony” somehow imparts a warm feeling of comfort and security, as does the knowledge that I am a student, of sorts, of history and how these artefacts are in concert with the events they commemorate.

      For most of us, we collect for ourselves and not for others, nor do we seek to garner praise for our efforts from the few upon whom we may bestow the honour of viewing our treasures. I suppose that is somewhat a joke in the average person’s opinion as many would think even an hour going over someone’s collection, their passion as it were, to be a total waste of time. However, they are simply members of the great unwashed masses so let’s not give them any more consideration here.

      I’ve seen several collections where the owner has framed their collection, breaking the medals up into specific themes or a grouping to one recipient. For the most part I really like this, however in my case; wall space is and always has been at a premium. Framed documents and larger photos have always taken precedence in allotting wall space so medals were placed in shallow drawers out of necessity as much as anything else.

      In this blog I am speaking more about additional items to enhance the experience for someone viewing a collection and even to make it more interesting for the collectors themselves. Some of those additional items could be the cigarette cards mentioned earlier which could be of a soldier in uniform as much as the particular medal. My Bahawalpur collection has a cigarette card featuring a soldier from that country in full uniform, which I think is quite interesting. In addition to this I have added a post card commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1st Bahawalpur Regiment, 1834-1934, and their battle honours.

      Other additions to collectables, that comes to mind; could be the addition of nipple, or hammer protectors to a black powder rifle or musket, or an authentic muzzle plug for the same type of weapon. A small word of caution here; it might be best not to make the announcement around the water cooler, in the office, that you are awaiting a shipment of vintage nipple protectors. Nasty rumors could be forthcoming. Of course rifle slings either authentic or reproductions dresses up a rifle or musket quite nicely. A discussion on reproductions, “to use or not to use”, is a topic for another time.

      Examples of additional items for a musket are shown below. The nipple protector and muzzle plug are on an 1853 Enfield and the sling is an original on a Pattern 1842 Brunswick Rifle marked as belonging to the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR).



      Swords too have accessories such as wrist straps and sword knots that can be added. Sadly my Japanese sword collection has no such accessories, yet, but who knows, perhaps in the future. The only one with any such strap is missing the all important knot.

      The British sword shown below, with original leather sword knot, is the Pattern 1895 Infantry Officer’s Sword displaying the cipher of King George V.



      As always I hope this short dissertation will give the reader pause to think about alternatives to simply adding yet another item to the collection and enhance the specimens you already have.

      Regards

      Brian






    15. Brian Wolfe
      Shedding Light on the Crime; not a bedtime story.

      Abysmal was the only word to describe this moonless overcast autumn night. The neighbourhood had been forgotten by society, polite society that is. The street lights were old and outdated. New lights found in the up-scale areas would never see this neighbourhood, not even when they were felt to be out of style. The lights would be sold to smaller municipalities; never to be installed here. Many of the lights were out, shot out by pellet guns making the darkness here purposeful and with an intent repulsive to gentler folk. This the city planners called “Urban Blight”, however in more knowledgeable circles where actual “doing” was the norm was whispered a different term. “Ghettoization of the Poor” was the term bantered around, a purposeful concentration of those less fortunate to serve as fodder, victims if you will, to the criminal element. After all as long as you can ignore an area in decline thereby creating a hunting ground for the wolves of society the chances are less likely that they will ply their trade in the white bread world of “up-town”. This is nothing new and every city has their Cedar Street, corner of St. Ledger and Young and “Shooters Lane”. This will never change as high speed commuter train systems are more important than the welfare of our fellow man. It truly is still a Dickensian world.

      Along with the blinded street lights very little other light was visible short of the odd window through which an eerie sporadic pulsating glow emitted from a television set. One or two upstairs windows were lit up and there existed hope that in the room was a small desk with a young child who was pouring over his or her lessons with the slight hope of earning their way out of this cess pool. Experience, however, told a different likelihood. That of a single mattress thrown on the floor where a lady of the evening carried on her so-called trade in order to earn just enough for the next hit of crack, smoked using a crushed soda can as a pipe and a butane cigarette lighter as the ignition source. She was old before her time, even though she was barely out of her teens, just more collateral damage in the political gaming circles.

      The house in question had long past being described as run down and old. It was an ancient pile or half rotten timbers and broken window panes awaiting the caress of the arson’s touch. A sure fate when the property became more valuable than the rent squeezed by the slumlord from these poor retches. Still it was someone’s home and castle, their refuge from the greater decay looming all around in the darkness. Paint had long since given up trying to make a home on the building’s exterior and what did still reside there was in flakes peeling off as if it too were trying to follow after its comrades to a better existence. The front steps had long since given up being even close to horizontal and the wooden treads were bowed downwards as if the stress of thousands of desperate souls treading on them had been too depressing for them and they now just existed without the will to live. Under the porch could be heard a rustling scurrying sound of creatures best left unseen and unmolested least their unwanted attentions be turned loose on the inquisitive interloper. On the corner of the porch next to a very narrow unpaved driveway, was a square-based tapering pillar holding up the porch roof with the house number 23 affixed to it. The letters had been of good quality at one time, enameled white letters on a metal base. Now they were missing much of the enameling with what was left being stained yellow by the rusting medal. Under the letters was nailed a board with little to no regard to right angles or even an attempt to be slightly horizontal. On the board was scrawled the words, “23½ ROUND BACK!” by someone obviously sick and tired of being inconvenienced to give out directions to 23½.

      “Why is it always ‘round back?”

      The driveway was put in long after the house had been built, before Henry Ford’s creations, constructed to accommodate the Model T or Model A automobiles of the day. It had gone unused due to its lack of width through the craze for super sized automobiles and the muscle cars. A Smart Car would now fit but that would never be seen in this neighbourhood. The driveway was equally dark and uninviting ending with a dilapidated garage, more than a mate for the ailing house. The sill had long ago rotted away and the vertical wood siding was now all that held the structure erect. The sides themselves bowed out leaving the structure resembling a circus tent more than an accessory building.

      The sound of a dog barking in the distance could be heard but it sounded to be a few doors over. No barking came from this property in response to the other dog’s challenge so that may not be an issue here.

      “At least it’s not the end of the shift.”

      There was a superstition among the officers in the division that if all went well for your whole shift then the last call was likely going to be the most dangerous. If you were going to “buy it” then that was when it would happen. This caution was probably started to keep the new officers on their toes. As the biggest factor in any officer’s injury or death is quite often complacency.

      Taking a deep breath the summons firmly in the officer’s leather encased Kevlar gloved left hand, he drew his right hand back past the Asp (extendable baton), undoing the dome on his 9 mil. holster and finally coming to resting on his three-cell Mag-Lite. He preferred the Mag over the stronger beam of the mini flashlights carried by some of the younger officers. The reason was simple, deadly simple. A Mag might not be able to blind a charging rhino or fry ants at fifty feet such as the young officers bragged about their mini lights, but it gave sufficient light and could serve, as it had on several occasions, as a defensive “weapon of opportunity”. Here is the simple logic. When something “goes down” you have 1.5 seconds to react. So, 1.5 seconds to drop your mini flashlight, un-holster your 9 mill (did you remember to unfasten it earlier?), snap off the safety, point it at the assailant and come up with a memorable line out of a Dirty Harry or Rambo movie and save your butt. All in 1.5 seconds...won’t happen sweetheart! At least with the Mag-Lite in hand you have something, well, at hand, what you do in the next 1.5 seconds is up to you.

      “Thank God for my Mag-Lite”

      The officer had seen just about every kind of trap and trip fall over the years. From boards with nails protruding waiting like some spiny sea urchin in the dark waters of night, to impale any unwary pedestrian venturing into their domain, to trip wires set across the top of exterior basement access stairways. The lights at the bottom of these egress wells were always “conveniently” out of order. The one that always stuck in his mind was one basement apartment access stairs, as usual in complete darkness, that had a row of soda cans sitting along the front edge of one of the treads, about one half way down the stair case. Stepping on top one or two of these cans would send you down the stairs on your backside in a flash. The worst were concrete stair cases. Then there were the “screamers”. Battery powered alarms that emitted a sharp whine so loud as to nearly split an ear drum and the fright enough to bring on a heart attack, or at least it seemed so. These were attached to one side of the stair case, a monofilament line stretched across the stair way. These were activated similar to a hand grenade with a pin being pulled out when someone tripped the line. If there was one thing in abundance in this neighbourhood it was human ingenuity, whether protective or malicious.

      Reaching the back corner of the main house there was a smaller structure attached, probably a former kitchen with accommodation for the “help” dating back to more affluent times. The porch light was off but the window beside the door was lit up. As he scanned the property and especially the path to the door he noticed that the only potential traps were those of children’s toys reluctantly left when “time for bed” was announced. He could imagine the protests of the young adventurers as their mother put an end to their conquests of the imagined castle or the slaying of the evil dragon. Some things common to children everywhere is their ability to ignore brutal reality in favour of their own worlds of make believe. This made him smile slightly.

      Reaching the entrance the officer opened the screen door and knocked on the old paint cracked wooden slab. He actually lightly kicked the door with the toe of his shoe but it was still a knock. Immediately the light was turned off that had illuminated the window and the porch light was snapped on. The officer instinctively shut the screen door which he braced closed with his foot; toe on the door and heel firmly against the decking of the porch. This was the moment of truth, the seconds before the bull charges the matador or the moment before when all is revealed, the expected raging bull or a peaceful member of the heard.

      A woman opened the door; it was hard to tell her age due to the lack of light as she stayed in the shadows afforded by the frame of the screen door. It didn’t matter at this time as the officer could see that she held nothing in her hands and shining the flashlight’s beam in her face would only serve to annoy more than identify..at least for the time being.

      “Is Mr. Larry Oatman living at this address?”
      “Yes, I’m his wife”, she offered without hesitation and offered her full name and date of birth following the officer’s request.
      “Please give this to him” the officer calmly said in a helpful tone of voice practised to garner cooperation.
      “What is this?” She queried as she instinctively reached out and took the document. This happens more than not when serving a summons which is helpful though in Canada there is no need to actually touch the person with the summons to complete service.
      “It’s a Summons for Mr. Oatman to appear in court”
      She accepted this with a look of someone familiar with the term recidivism; the cycle of conviction followed by incarceration, release and another crime leading to arrest and conviction. This time all went down smoothly and peacefully. It is not always so, but one needs to be thankful for small favours and not dwell on the times when you’re met with violence.

      Back in the patrol car the officer couldn’t help but think that this cycle of crime, incarceration, release then crime was like the instructions, wash, rinse, and repeat on the label on a shampoo bottle being applied to life. He also couldn’t help but wonder if this was always going to be the case for many in this part of the city. Deep down he knew the answer to his own question.

      This is a scenario played out over and over day after day year after year all over the country. In most cases there is no need for a firearm, the asp is not drawn or the pepper spay not released into an assailant’s eyes. However it’s the trusty old flashlight that is employed repeatedly. So it has been since the days of the watchmen with their burning brands, or torches, the candle lit lamps followed in time by oil fueled and then to battery powered lights, shedding light on crime and making it safer for officers to carry out their duties.

      For quite some time now my good friend and fellow GMIC member, Mervyn Mitton and I have been discussing a collaboration of sorts to expand one of his earlier posts, regarding early police lanterns. This will involve specimens from both of our collections and a detailed description along with photos of the different specimens. I anticipate this taking some time as between the two of us we possess quite a good number of examples. In addition to this blog I will kick the project off with a “What do they have in common?” question. Sorry, no prize for the correct answer or even the wittiest response; just bragging rights. Which I suppose could be considered “priceless”.

      Watch for the knowledge testing question coming to the appropriate section of your form shortly. Then tune into the police section to follow our post on police lanterns.

      Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and I hope that you found it entertaining and will check out our Police Lantern post in the Police Section under the title “What did they do in the dark...”.

      Regards
      Brian
    16. Brian Wolfe
      An Adventure? Are you out of your mind?
      Part Two.
      As stated in the last installment Linda, my wife and best friend, and I had paid our admission to the Christie’s Antique Show and were at last on our way to the happy (antiques) hunting grounds. Once we crossed the causeway the area opened up to reveal the affects the night long rains had on the dealers. The wide rows were blocked with large vans and trailers because many dealers had waited until morning to start to set up their booths. Normally something like this would anger me but given the hurricane-like storm that had raged all night and the steady rain we were now experiencing, who could blame them for this late start? Many of the dealers house their wares in tents, though these are mainly protection from the intense heat of the sun; that would not pose a problem today. Some had tents with sides and plastic windows of the same design you see at outdoor weddings, the sides prevent the rains from getting in but also impedes the customers somewhat. Many of the dealers who only have tables set up outside in the elements had cancelled and those who decided to brave the elements were now regretting it. Plastic covered the tables and looked much like the dew spangled web of a grass spider (Agelenopsis spp.) in early morning. Pools of water had collected anywhere there had been a pocket formed in the plastic sheets. In one case between the spokes of a ship’s wheel producing a circle of small triangle lakes and another, in the form or a rectangular pool that was bordered by a picture’s frame under the plastic. There was one poor lady who had left her wares out over night at the mercy of the elements and now had to deal with emptying out the water from dozens and dozens of bowls and vases. The positive aspect of this was that she only sold glass and ceramic ware so everything at least had a good wash. A few were not as fortunate because the winds had ripped the plastic away for the tables and the paper goods and photographs were in ruin. Anything made of cloth or stuffed items like bears and their ilk were saturated. I can only hope that these were able to be salvaged.
      Our immediate goal was to go directly to the pavilion, a permanent structure on the grounds, consisting of two adjoining show rooms, a refreshment concession and washrooms. It would seem that one of us was not willing to wait until we got to the show before consuming an extra large double, double coffee making the trek to the washroom of paramount importance. Yes, that would have been me, good sense and planning ahead not being a familiar state of my thought process. This would not have mattered anyway as we always go to the pavilion first as there is one dealer who always has a few medals and good quality black powder firearms for sale. I would like to point something out at this point regarding washrooms. The washrooms in the pavilion are always in good condition, however, when the show’s attendance it at its zenith the demand for the facilities out strips the availability of fixtures. It is for this reason the Conservation Authority brings in portable toilets and lines them up along the wall of the pavilion opposite to the entrance to the washrooms. Having worked for a conservation authority myself for some time now there is one thing I have learned. Water will always run down hill and if there is a depression in the ground the water will find it and fill it to the brim before continuing on to its destination at the lowest possible point wherever that may be. In this case that lowest point, at least for the time being, was where they had placed the portable toilets. These blue beacons of relief for the desperate victims of the extra large double, double coffees consumed, even though their spouses warned against it, were perched on wooden skids. I am sure this was to facilitate the placement and removal by the units by the waste management company. The water in this little lake was at least four inches deep judging by how little the skids were still out of the water, and that was not much. I could not help but think of later in the day when the skies cleared and the crowds arrived that there would be long line ups for the pavilion washrooms due to the inaccessibility of the portable toilets unless the conservation authority was about to open up a ferry service, though I suppose canoes would be a suitable alternative. Imagine if you will a long line of patrons, bladders filled to bursting, forced to wait their turn for relief with a large body of water adjacent to the walkway. Now think of a breeze causing a slight ripple on the surface of that pond. An exquisite torture that only Tomas de Torquemada could fully appreciate.
      Leaving behind the thoughts of the torments of those late arrivals to the show I’ll move on to the dealer I wanted to see here in the pavilion. As I have stated, more than once here on the forum, I tend to make purchases from only a few eBay sellers and some fellow GMIC members, in a couple of cases they are one in the same. With all of the scam artists and out and out fakes and reproductions out in the world today I suggest that all collectors find such suppliers, it will be well worth it. The dealer in question has supplied me with black powder firearms as well as medals over the years and his word is his bond. At this point in time at the show there were few collectors on the field so we had time for pleasantries which is a rare thing at this particular show, as the pavilion is usually a mad house of activity. I was looking to add a Snyder Rifle to the collection and I recalled that he had a couple for sale at the spring show. They had, as I feared, been sold but there was a British percussion rifle with bayonet and scabbard on display that caught my eye. I thought that it was an 1858 Artillery Carbine but he identified it as an 1853 Calvary Carbine, both look pretty much the same to my eye. The price was not too bad but there were some condition issues. In our conversation, remember there were few buyers at this point so we had some time, I mentioned that Linda has an interest in the War of 1812 as well as the Fenian Raids as do I of course. I’d have to say that my wife is much keener on these areas of Canadian history and I tend to concentrate on British Empire, Police and World War One history. The dealer pointed out a few condition issues I had missed and reminded me that this particular type of rifle fell between the two areas of our interest (1812 and 1866). Further, this was the rifle that was converted to the Snyder, which would be the rifle we should hold out for and then add to the collection. I think my point about sticking to a few select trusted dealers has been made.
      When I first arrived at the display I had noted a nice group of five World War Two medals with a boxed Memorial Cross (therefore Canadian) along with the supporting documents. I figured that I would purchase that since the rifle was not going to be secured. I turned toward the display case next to me and was about say, “I’ll take that group”, when I heard the voice of the fellow beside me as he said, to the dealer’s wife, “I’ll take that group”. I looked at the dealer and we both had to chuckle a bit as it was quite the coincidence. The collector turned and just inquired, “What?” I related why we found this a bit humorous and told him it must be his lucky day. He thought so too.

      There was a Canadian Decoration (CD) in a box, this is the Canadian Long Service Good Conduct Medal, and it was named to a Captain. I decided to purchase this one, not only because of the rank, which I didn’t have, but also due to the box which was different than any of the ones presently in the collection. The pavilion was staring to fill up so we decided it was time to brave the elements once again and besides the rains had slackened up a bit and it was now just what I would call a steady rain. The type of rain fall you like to see, one that would soak in rather then run off your lawns a gardens. Tough by this time the ground was pretty well saturated anyway. Just before leaving I took a last look at the rifle, you know how it is...just in case there was a change of mind. It was at this point the dealer asked me to wait a minute and he went to the back of his truck which was backed into the pavilion’s open side behind his booth. He pulled out an object wrapped in some dark cloth and started to unwrap it. He said that I might be interested in this and he that he had just purchased it. What he uncovered was a percussion cap dueling pistol. A British dueling pistol marked as being the Manton Patent. Joseph Manton was a very important gunsmith in the 1800s and his innovations greatly improved the dueling pistol, among his other achievements. This was the treasure of the day, an actual dueling pistol. These are usually in pairs (of course) and come in a fitted box. This was a single pistol from what was undoubtedly once a pair. As most who know me from this forum are aware I seldom disclose what I pay for items as I believe money is secondary to the artifact. If you can’t afford it, don’t purchase it. If you have the expendable cash then make the purchase, however, talking about what you paid for an item results in either bragging or whining, both I find distasteful, and crass. I will post the pistol in the appropriate area of the GMIC at a later date. The rest of the morning passed with no really exciting finds and we left just as the sun was starting to appear and the rains starting to recede. We were both pretty well soaked and with mud splashed half way to our knees as well we arrived back at the van to begin our trip home. Needless to say I thought the day was well worth the effort and not being one to just let it go (see part one) commented that the day had been quite the adventure. To this Linda just laughed and said, “An adventure? Are you out of your mind?”


      Regards
      Brian
    17. Brian Wolfe
      An Adventure? Are you out of your mind?
      Part One.

      Summer was just about over, a summer plagued with drought conditions here in this part of Ontario, Canada, with crops being devastated and shallow well drying up. For us at the Grand River Conservation Authority it was equally serious. Fire bans angered the campers, even though it was as much for their protection as anything else. The cottagers who lease their lots from us around two reservoirs were more than a little edgy as the “lakes” receded from the shore line to a record distance as the water was depleted and not replenished by nature. Boat launching from the cottage lots was out of the question and in front of each property was now a border of what could only be described as mud flats. After the drought we had started into what may be described as the rainy season and with its arrival the severe heat of the summer was vacating our lands. It was a heat that was reported to have been in the low forties centigrade, if you calculate the high humidity into the equation. I tend to hate the high temperatures, being born in the North, in a place formerly known as Fort William. The rest of my family are “Southerners” and can’t understand my love of the Canadian winter, I don’t mind being the odd duck of the flock, after all they’re Southerners and you just have to tolerate them; an attitude that led to many, to say the least, awkward situations while I was growing up. I really like autumn and refuse to refer to it as “fall” because it is autumn and not the direction of travel when one’s feet are suddenly horizontal with one’s head when footing is lost on ice. I like the slap in the face from Mother Nature as she strikes your cheek with that fine frozen drizzle propelled by high winds just before winter sets in. Suddenly I am starting to see my family’s point of view, perhaps I am the “odd” duck of the flock, could they have been right all of these year; no that would not be logical...they’re Southerners.

      The story is not about my eccentricities, though that is exactly what an eccentric would say, it’s about collecting. That last statement probably surprised absolutely no one.

      A neighbouring Conservation Authority to the one I am so fortunate to work for holds a bi-annual outdoor antiques show. This is the Christie’s Antiques Show, named after the Christie Conservation Authority, situated near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. There are hundreds of dealers and is attended by thousands and thousands of dedicated antiques hunters, collectors as well as a good smattering of curious and interesting characters. As always the plan was to arrive before the show opens to assure a parking spot close to the means of egress as after walking for miles searching for collectables one doesn’t need to walk an additional mile to their vehicle. The older I get the closer I want to be to that most welcome exit at the day’s end. It was up at 05:00 and get ready for the day’s outing. Remember that this was the rainy season and the forecast had not bode well for a dry excursion, but we had our rain gear out and were ready for whatever Ma Nature could throw at us. My dear wife, Linda, was born and raised in Perth Ontario which is an hour’s drive south of Ottawa, our nation’s capital the home of our Parliament, or as I like to think of it, “the gas works”. The location where Linda lived would make her a Northern girl; however, the number of years spent here in the South has had an adverse effect on her. Her tolerance to cold wet weather is about as low as it is toward my sense of humor, though she is a good sport about the latter. I have heard her referred to as “Brian’s long suffering wife”; though what “they” are getting at eludes me as her health is just fine, thank you very much.

      So there we were on our way to the antiques show, in the dark, in the rain with windshield wipers on full speed and visibility far from ideal. After an hour ‘s drive in relative quiet, the possibility of this being an ominous silence never seemed to dawn on me, though dawn itself was upon us. As we sat there in our van, awaiting the gates of the show to open, the storm seemed to increase in ferocity. Gusts of wind laden with rain hit the side of the van at a near forty-five degrees rocking the vehicle with a violence that only the most vengeful elements can muster. Lightning and thunder were all around and I discovered right there and then that breaking into a chorus of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (you know, “Thunder and Lightning, very, very frightening”) was not to be received in the vein of humour in which it was intended. My dear wife did say the anymore Queen renditions from me and it would result in “Another one bites the dust!” Oh, and I suppose that Queen reference was funny? Suddenly, with the storm raging all around, there was an uneasy silence that only men know when they tell their wives that they can’t attend the ballet because the Stanley Cup playoffs are being played on that same night. Women, go figure. In fairness to the ladies I suppose one could say, “Men, go figure”, though that, of course, would not be my first choice.

      Not being one to learn from my mistakes, no matter how recent they may be (it’s a guy thing), I broke the silence with the suggestion that one should see this as an adventure. I offered the image of Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Capt. Ahab standing on the deck of the Pequod as he sailed her around the horn. I often like to think of myself as one of Gregory Peck’s heroic characters, though I am beginning to regret sharing that, oh well, I did say I have a tendency toward the eccentric. Linda offered that this was more like being on the bridge of the Edmund Fitzgerald. For those not familiar with Great Lakes lore this was a ship that sunk in a gale on 10 November 1975 in Lake Superior with all hands, no bodies were ever recovered. Check it out on the internet it is an interesting story, one made legend by Gordon Lightfoot in his song of the sinking of this ship.
      By this time the winds had subsided though the rain continued in a torrential downpour and finally after what seemed an eternity the show’s gates were open. We approached the gate, Linda safely sheltered under her umbrella and me in my rain coat and good luck Tilley hat in anticipation of what treasures we would uncover. After passing through the gate we walked over an earthen walkway that cut through a pond, so water was on either side as well as teaming down from the heavens. I could not help but feel a little like Peck’s Capt. Mallory in the 1961 movie “The Guns of Navarone” as they approached their goal climbing up the shoreline cliffs in the gale force storm. Strange, as you would think that I would liken our pending adventure to some Indiana Jones movie but I have always liked the classics and let’s be honest Indie will never be a classic, not as far as acting is concerned.
      Finally we entered the hallowed grounds of antiques heaven.

      ....to be continued.


      Regards
      Brian
    18. Brian Wolfe
      Collecting More but Enjoying It Less?

      Up before dawn and after a stop at Tim Horton’s coffee shop back on the road for an hour’s drive. Arriving at the “Tim’s” located in the town or city of your destination, after all, Canadian’s plan their trips in accordance to the location of a handy Tim’s. Fresh coffee in hand you pull into the show’s parking lot and at this early hour there is almost an unlimited choice of parking spaces. Dawn has broke and you find yourself in line, hot coffee in hand to help fight off the cold chill of the morning, awaiting the minutes before the doors will be flung open allowing the flood of eager collectors and hunters to stream in.

      Yes, it’s Gun Show Day down Canada way!

      An auditorium filled to capacity with dealers and enthusiasts alike. There are guns, swords, knives, medals and sundry equipment in abundance. People talking to people of like interest and you are able to actually pick up an item, unlike the on-line auction houses wares you may have “won”. With a bit of luck and a fair bit of haggling you may be heading home in a few hours with a new treasure to add to your, collection room, war room, Rambo room or study, whatever you call your Sanctum sanctorum.

      Gun, militaria and medal shows are tactile and social events filled with sights (no pun intended) and sounds ranging from laughter to argument. Deals made, information and goods exchanged. They are the market places of old where customer met wares, the trading centres so important to the development of our countries and our way of life.

      For the past decade I have more or less turned my back on shows opting instead for the ease and convenience of the internet based auction houses such as the famous or infamous eBay. There are others though this is the one I have carried out business with. It hit me a few days ago that while I was collecting a lot more I may, in fact, be enjoying it a lot less.

      My mind got to wandering, which it is prone to do now that I am older, of the days when I would go fishing with my childhood buddies. On the lake in our canoes before dawn, listening to the loon song wavering over the still water. A chill in the air and the water feeling like warm tea to the touch; the joking about one of the crew having once stepped in a soft spot in the muskeg and plunging through to the putrid water below, up to his waste, while on portage. Some days the fish would bite and some days it was the mosquitoes, such is the angler’s world and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

      Then the years passed by, we all got busy with families and careers, some with wives and girl friends, etc. Some got side tracked with divorces when wives met girlfriends. It’s all in the timing you know. Now almost all of my boyhood friends are no longer with us, residing in a much hotter place down below us. In Florida! What were you thinking? Now I go to the supermarket and if I want fish to I pick from a vast array of different fish, both fresh and frozen. I never fail to reach my “quota” and I never provide a snack for those vampires of the insect world. I also don’t talk about the experience as it has become mundane. There is no bragging rights or accusations of exaggerating the length of a fish taken two years hence; and no defending that exaggeration - as we all know it was indeed much shorter than now claimed.

      Eventually my mind did return to the topic at hand and I wondered if what has happened to my pursuit of that monster bass, pickerel (walleye), pike or lake trout has happened to my collecting. You don’t have to believe this but about four months ago I swore off eBay and any other on-line auction and started once again to attend miltaria and gun shows. To my amazement the thrill of the “hunt” has returned. The crowd has changed somewhat. The majority are a lot younger and the “old boys” with their gruff exteriors and ample girths have been replaced by...(now this is depressing)...me. The last show turned up a nice little flintlock pistol and I have reacquainted with some of the dealers who are still attending. There is a trade pending involving a Brown Bess and my surplus collectables which would never have happened on eBay.

      This may not be the way to go for all collectors, especially the younger collector, trying to build a collection and especially if on a shoestring budget. I’m not bragging but I’ve built a good base collection and I no longer feel the need to add great qualities to the collection. So I am content to pay a bit more and collect fewer items of a bit higher quality. Many of these items are not available on the internet auctions and it is always best if you can handle collectables that are more expensive and rarer.

      So for me, I am now collecting less and enjoying it more, a lot more.

      Regards
      Brian

    19. Brian Wolfe
      Are you kidding, no really are you kidding?

      Last Saturday one of the largest, if not the largest, outdoor antiques fairs was held near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It has been a few years since we were able to attend and most of the dealers have been the same for many years so it was like a family reunion with some that we’ve dealt with over the years.

      One of the first things an antiques dealer will tell you is not to refinish antiques as their value is lost once you do this. You will hear this mantra chanted over and over especially when they are looking to purchase the furniture dear old Aunt Betsy left you. Of course you “cave in” and let the dealer take the refinished ruined junk off your hands for a pittance and letting you feel that they have done you a big favour. Well pilgrim you’ve just been shafted. A walk around any antiques fair will prove me out as you pass display after display of finished and what I would call over finished antique furniture. At the show you will hear these same dealers preaching that it is better to refinish the antique so that you can live with it and use it the way to was supposed to be used. Two definite schools of thought I will admit. However I recognized a couple of these fellows and they talk out of both sides of their faces more easily than could the Roman God Janus. Thinking of ancient Rome I am all for S.P.Q.R. in business, which in this case stands for “Small Profit Quick Return” however some seem to think “buy low sell high” is always an honourable act, no matter what bovine excrement they are required to spread in order to close a deal. Contrary to what I seem to be saying, most of the dealers are honest folk but you know what they say about a rotten apple in the barrel.

      This is not really the theme of my article it was just an observation. The theme is all of the fakery that seems to be going on and sold by so-called reputable dealers under the excuse that they are not knowledgeable in this or that field when “called” on the authenticity of an item. This self same dealer will be waxing prophetic to a prospective client one second and then crying that they are as innocent as a new born lamp with the very next breath when trying to explain a fake being passed off as authentic. To be sure this is not the show to attend if you are looking for military collectables though there is always bit to choose from. The prices are usually well above market for medals, weapons etc. so this is a show to attend for other collectables. However, having said that, I found it interesting that so many dealers managed to be displaying fakes and replicas of mostly WWII German medals mixed in with some over prices genuine articles. It is almost as if they are pricing the authentic items in order to hold onto them and low balling the fakes. Low balling the price if it were genuine that is.

      I looked at a pair of Figure Of Eight handcuffs that the dealer said he picked up in Georgia last week (it is always “last week” with these guys) and he’d let it go for $200.00. I was polite and passed on the cuffs, however, if I had wanted such a pair I could pick them up for around $35.00 on eBay from the same fellow who makes them...in Georgia. The quality was not really bad though nowhere near that of Hiatt but the poor quality key is always a dead giveaway. I will post mine to show the difference someday (he said in embarrassment) along with a genuine key and you will see a world of difference.

      Another booth proudly offered a Police Helmet from the Metropolitan Police sporting a ball top for only $200.00. I think the other police collectors will support my claim that the Met has never used a ball top. Amazingly, though I suppose it should not have come as a surprise, the dealer claimed he had purchased it directly from the officer himself while on a trip to the UK. The officer must have really stood out among the rest of the police all wearing the familiar Metropolitan Cox Comb Style helmet. I wonder if his name was Benny Hill.

      Back in the early 1970s there was a flood of Indian swords offered for a pittance; these were over cleaned for the most part but they were authentic. Just after this Tsunami of Tulwars another “after shock wave” hit with thousands of newly made copies being offered in every flea market stall from Chicoutimi to Bella Coola (you’ll have to look those up yourself).

      Meanwhile back at the antiques fair.
      A fellow was looking at a curved sword that had been ground down as if sharpened before every battle ever fought with sword. The handle was wooden and the knuckle guard was an open style basket and quite well done. To enhance this treasure someone (I wonder who) had recently painted it gloss black. This was obviously one of those replica Indian swords that had the design on the blade removed, over-ground to change the curve a bit and then painted black. The grip showed no wear which should have made the perspective buyer wonder how the blade had seen so much wear while the grip was pristine as was the hand guard. I suppose it could have been a one of those miracles preformed by the Giant Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The dealer played right along and mused as to how many battles the sword had been in and just how many men it had killed. Easy answer...NONE! The customer started to dicker on the price which had started at $300.00 and I couldn’t take any more and walked away muttering “Caveat emptor”. If I was overheard I’m sure the dealer told the customer that was the name of the style of sword.

      Most of the time I am pretty good at controlling my indignation and keeping my self-righteous rage in check. However I will admit that the reason I have not been to this show for a while is that I was banned from going for at least a year by my dear wife. We were at the show with some friends, formally from the UK. My friend Graham and I were looking at a drawer unit that I was interested in and I was seeing if the drawers were all in working order. The dealer said “It looks like we have a couple of yankers here” and I thought he said “s”. There was a bit of confusion as to whether I actually grabbed the fellow by the front of his shirt or not...just to make a point mind you. Graham, a quick thinking East Ender, was between us before anything else could happen, but I think I made my point. So now I keep my distance and regarding the over- priced fakes and I just think, “Are you kidding, no really are you kidding!”

      Let’s hear from the rest of the membership regarding their collecting experiences over the summer.

      Regards
      Brian
    20. Brian Wolfe
      Collecting the Periphery Part 3

      When collecting medals that are not directly military in nature it would be easy to overlook the Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter or in English, Cross of Honour of the German Mother. I say this as it seems to me that anything associated with the Third Reich automatically conjures up military associations. This was a state decoration and civil order of merit awarded to mothers for exceptional merit to Germany.

      This decoration was awarded from 1939 until 1945 in three classes, these classes being, bronze, silver and gold. All of the classes were awarded to mothers who exhibited exemplary motherhood and in the case of the bronze or 3rd Class award conceived four to five children. The silver or 2nd Class was awarded to mothers with six to seven children and the gold or 1st Class to mothers with eight or more children.

      The award was introduced by decree in Berlin in 1938 by the then Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler and awarded annually mainly on Mother’s Day as well as other national association’s annual events of celebrations.

      The award of this decoration was highly regarded by the German Government and the mothers nominated for the award were thoroughly investigated to assure that they met the qualifications. A number of benefits were associated with the award including a small financial benefit and preferential treatment within public service such as medical, clothing, schooling and housing. Upon the death of the recipient the Mother’s Cross of Honour was, by statute, allowed to be inheritable by the bereaved family as a keepsake of remembrance.

      The design of the cross is based on an elongated iron cross similar to the cross of the Teutonic Knights Order. The body of the cross is blue with a narrow white enamelled border. A sunburst with a roundel in its centre with the words, “DER DEUTSCHEN MUTTER”, English translation: OF THE GERMAN MOTHER around a black swastika is situated where the two parts of the cross intersect. The reverse features the date of introduction, “16 Dezember 1938” beneath which is a facsimile of the signature of the Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. I believe it is quite rare for any national leader to actually have their signature appear on the reverse of a medal of decoration. Not that this is an actual autograph per sae, however, it is a copy of his signature which I personally find interesting. From what I have read, from several sources, Adolf Hitler held his own mother in very high esteem. This, in my opinion, may have been a why his signature appears on the German Mother’s Cross. The award was worn around the neck on a thin blue and white ribbon. This was the only official manner of wear though a miniature example is known which was worn suspended from a blue and white bow made of the same ribbon as the neck ribbon. This was a semi-official approved version and a bow alone was also authorized for general everyday wear.
      The decoration could be withdrawn at any time after being awarded if it was found that the recipient acted in a manner which conflicted to the criteria set out for the award. An example would be if the mother abandoned her children

      At the end of World War Two and the fall of the Third Reich all medals and awards bearing the swastika became illegal to wear and so the Mutterehrenkreuz (Mother’s Cross of Honour) also became illegal and therefore was no longer worn.

      Opinion:

      It has been held that Hitler implemented this award only to encourage large families in order to fill the ranks of the German military. However, one should keep in mind that when this award was first introduced the world had just gone through a change in morals and a life style not in keeping with the family values of the past. The Roaring Twenties had just ended and a need to bring the thinking of the younger population back in line with the more traditional family values was needed. While this indeed had the additional “benefit” of providing a larger number of young men for military service I believe there were more reasons than purely providing cannon fodder.

      One of the reasons for my statement is that Germany has not been the only country to implement an award to honour mothers who raised several children in an appropriate manner. In 1920 France implemented the Médaille de la Famille française (Medal of the French Family). Another example would be the Order of Maternal Glory and Mother Heroine of the Soviet Union from the same era.

      A very striking display can be made with these awards and their neck
      ribbons. Considering they may still be purchased at a reasonable price one can purchase an extra to display the reverse bearing the signature of Adolf Hitler.

      In my next installment of this series, “Collecting the Periphery Part 4” I will get back to British Empire medals. It is my intention to feature photos of the medals from this series that I have in my collection, in the regular sections of the forum.

      Sources:

      Wikipedia: Cross of Honor of the German Mother
    21. Brian Wolfe
      Collecting the Periphery Part 2

      Have you ever started a project only to realize that perhaps to do it justice you probably shouldn’t have started it in the first place?

      This is not exactly what has happened to my plan to discuss collecting medals outside of the usual parameters of military and Mervin has pointed out, and rightly so, that this was a huge undertaking. The vast array of non-military medals is daunting to say the least. Therefore this will not be a treatise or my opus magnum on the subject but just an overview and perhaps it will serve to get people thinking about alternative medal collecting and study.

      In the first installment we discussed the Red Cross and similar organizations which included the Western Hemisphere as well as Japan, I neglected to mention the German Red Cross Medals and I regret doing so now, but it’s a little too late at this stage. To continue on along the lines of those who care for others, in particular the nursing profession, the first one that comes to mind is the Voluntary Medical Service Medal, instituted in 1932 and awarded for 15 years of service, with a bar for each additional 5 years of service. This is a medal I have as yet to add to my collection though I intend to do so some day. The obverse features a veiled bust of a woman holding an oil lamp. This, I have read, is a stylized representation of Florence Nightingale. The reverse features the crosses of Geneva and St. Andrew. To my knowledge these were always issued unnamed. The ribbon is red with yellow and white stripes.

      I have, in my collection, a medal in the form of a Maltese cross named to M. Mc Leavy, with distinction, for proficiency in mental nursing, from the Royal Medico-Psychological Association. It is a bronze cross which hangs from a dark blue ribbon. We know this medal dates after 1926 as that was when it received its Royal Charter and before 1971 when a Supplemental Charter accorded the Association the status of the “Royal College of Psychiatrist”. As many of the medals we have, and will, discuss during the length of this series many of the so-called periphery specimens are tied closely with the military or as in the above example as result from armed conflict.


      Another medal from my own collection is the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service Long Service Medal instituted in 1961 and issued unnamed. This was issued for 15 years of service with a bar for an additional 15 years of service. This round medal is of cupro-nickel with the interlocking initials VWS within an ivy wreath. The medal in my collection predates 1966 when the WVS acquired the Royal title of WRVS. The reverse has three flowering plants and around the outside circumference is inscribed “Service Beyond Self”. The ribbon is dark green with twin white stripes towards the end and broad red edges. The medal is issued in a dark green fitted box with “Women’s Voluntary Service Medal” in gold impressed on the top of the box lid. I like to collect my medals in their fitted boxes when possible and these can be picked up later if you happen along a medal on its own without a box. I will discuss finding boxes for your medals in Part 3 along with a few a caveat or two to help you along.

      The last group of medals I will touch on in this installment are the life saving medals. The United Kingdom, like Japan is surrounded by water and of course this leads to the need to rescue unfortunate souls from its grip. The need for rescue from any body of water is arguably greater than most incidents on dry land, including fire rescue. I say this not to belittle the efforts of the Fire Suppression Services and I myself have served in my younger days with a fire department. I have also served in a small municipality on the shores of Lake Erie (one of the Great Lakes) and we used to average four to five deaths among the summer tourists due to drowning every year. During my five years with the fire department we never lost a soul, or needed to save one for that matter.

      The number of different medals for life saving in the UK is quite varied. One of my favourite in this genre, though not a life saving medal but a swimming proficiency medal, is the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society’s Swimming Medal. It was instituted in 1885 and is very ornate. I’ll quote the description from the Medals Yearbook, “ This extremely ornate medal has a twin dolphin suspender and a free form. (Obverse) a wreath surmounted by crossed oars and a trident, with a lifebelt at the centre enclosing the Liver Bird emblem on a shield; (reverse) plain, engraved with the recipient’s name and details. The medal comes in silver or bronze and the ribbon has five equal bars, three blue and two white. This is one medal I would love to have in the collection some day, however, as they say, so many medals so little time.

      Japan too had life saving medals and badges. In my collection reside two of the Imperial Sea Disaster Rescue Association badges. The activities of the Russian Lifeboat Association were observed by Count Kiyotaka Kuroda while he was touring Europe in 1888. This led to the founding of an organization in 1889 which became the Greater Imperial Sea Disaster Rescue Association, which later dropped the word “Greater”. The two badges in my collection are the Full Member’s Badge and the Honorary Member’s Badge. These are both basically the same design, being a frontal view of a lifeboat within a life saving ring with an anchor behind the badge. The Full Member’s badge is silver with a red field within the life saving ring which the Honorary Member’s badge is gold and a blue field within the life saving ring. These both come in fitted boxes. There are three classes of Merit Medals. They feature a shipwreck scene surrounded by a life saving ring. The third class is entirely silver, the second class features the suspender and life saving ring in gilt with the centre in silver and the first class is entirely in gilt. These are all suspended from a light blue ribbon with yellow stripes.

      In the next installment, Collecting the Periphery Part 3, I will touch on some of the different service awards such as the British Imperial Service Medals as an example.


      Sources:

      Wikipedia: Royal College of Psychiatrist
      In the Name of a Living God, Paul L. Murphy & Steven L. Ackley
      Medal Yearbook 2004, Token Publishing
      Reference to specimens – Author’s collection
    22. Brian Wolfe
      Collecting the Periphery Part One

      Most of what we see here on the GMIC and on other military focused forums is mainstream and by that I am referring to the collecting of medals. Medals for campaigns, long service, good conduct and “been there and got the T shirt” fill online auction pages and the catalogues of dealers around the world. Interestingly there are many areas of civilian medals that seem to have gone unnoticed by the collecting world in general.

      Police medals and equipment will not be included in this essay simply because I would like to concentrate on medals not dealing with keeping the peace which would, of course, include both the military and police.

      The first of these non-military or police medals that comes to mind is the multitude of Red Cross medals that are available to the collector. The Red Cross, founded by Henry Dunant in 1863 in Geneva Switzerland, has been on hand to give care and comfort in all the wars since its founding as well as providing relief during times of natural disasters and carrying out first aid training to the civilian population. The collecting of Red Cross memorabilia is perhaps not as far from main-stream as I would like to take today’s discussion. I say this as not only is the Red Cross, Red Crescent, St. John’s Ambulance among others, on hand during armed conflicts but, in the case of the Red Cross, there were WWII medals, the British War Medal and Victory medals named to members of the Red Cross. An example of this from my own collection is the BWM and Victory pair named to, J. (Jeanie) Low, B.R.C.S. and a group which in includes a St. John Ambulance Brigade Medal named to Special Constable Sgt. W. (William) C. Holley, Hants (Hampshire County) S.J.A.B. 1953. Sgt. Holley served with the S.J.A.B. from 1940 to 1961. His group also includes the British Defence Medal and Special Constabulary Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. Another example from my collection is a Red Cross Medal for Proficiency in Anti-gas Training named to 6938 C. Barclay who served with the Red Cross from 1938 to 1968. There is little doubt that the anti-gas training was connected with the Second World War threat of gas attack from Germany.

      Perhaps one of the best examples of the close ties between the military and the Red Cross may be found in the study of post Shogunate (1868 onward) Japanese Medals. The following is a quote from “In the Name of a Living God” by Paul L. Murphy and Steven L. Ackley. If you don’t have this book and have any interest in non-government badges and medals of Imperial Japan I highly recommend you purchase one. You WILL NOT regret it.

      “The forerunner of the Japanese Red Cross Society was the Hakuaisha (Philanthropic Society) which was founded in 1877 by Count Tsunetami Sano to help those who were wounded in the Satsuma Rebellion earlier that year. Japan signed the Geneva Convention in 1886 and in the following year the Hakuaisha changed its name to the Japanese Red Cross Society (Nippon Sekijujisha). It was recognized as such by the International Committee of the Red Cross on September 2, 1887.
      The society is under the patronage of the Imperial family and the symbol of the society is taken from the hair pin of the Meiji Empress that featured a Pawlonia, bamboo and ho-o bird. This design and/or the Geneva cross features on all of the badges and medals of the society”.

      Membership in the Nippon Sekijujisha was very common among military personnel so much so that many photos and medal groups may be found with the Red Cross Society’s medal included. In my own collection I have a photo of a soldier wearing the 1894-1895 War Medal (Sino-Japanese War) alongside the Nippon Sekijujisha Men’s Life Membership Medal. Another example, again from my own collection, is a four place ribbon bar with the Order of the Rising Sun (Kyuokujitsusho), Manchurian Incident (1931-1934), China Incident (1937 – 1945) along with the ever present Red Cross Medal ribbon. While doing research for this article I saw a group of Japanese medals and the description was of all of the military medals followed by “...and the Red Cross medal, of course”, demonstrating just how common it is to find the Red Cross Medal associated with the Japanese Military. I apologize that I cannot give proper credit for the quote above as I did not write down the source and my memory fails me on this point. If it was one of our fellow GMIC members please accept my sincere apologies.

      Please watch for Collecting the Periphery Part 2 coming soon where we will travel further afield away from mainstream collecting.

      Sources:
      Wikipedia – International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
      Orders and Medals of Japan and Associate States – James W. Peterson
      In the Name of a Living God – Paul L. Murphy & Steven L. Ackley
      Reference to specimens – Author’s collection
    23. Brian Wolfe
      Option A or Option B
      What you are about to read you may find disturbing or even offensive. If you do then you need to grow up. The permanency of life is an illusion and you cannot afford to delude yourself to thinking you are immortal. Therefore, if you have elected to read on, you have been duly warned and I will make no apologies if you find your delicate feelings have been hurt.

      Jim [not his real name] was 6 foot 2 inches tall, a big guy but not such as you would say was overweight at all. Age had left him, as it does most of us, a little soft in the midsection. This was just about all that was soft about Jim. He had the weathered look of someone who had worked hard out in the elements; a grizzled beard peppered with gray and a gruff personality pretty well summed up what Jim looked like. To most of the office staff he was a scary fellow best avoided and this had not changed since he became Zone Officer and was now stationed in head office. Others, like me, who have been seasoned by years of working in the field recognized a kindred spirit and fully appreciated his dark sense of humour.

      Jim had been with the Authority for 31 years and had become part of the corporate landscape. Late in 2011, after feeling unwell for a period of time, he made a rare appointment with his doctor. At 59 years of age he was told, after a battery of tests that he had prostate cancer, and worse it had spread to his bones and was now throughout his body.
      Jim knew his chances were extremely slim to none, with “none” being the odds on favour. He also knew what lay ahead of him with the proposed radiation and chemotherapy followed by what would most likely be a long agonizing death filled with unimaginable pain and suffering, held at bay for a while with massive amounts of drugs. In the end he knew he would be in a vegetative state out of touched with the world and loved ones only to finally die in a haze of confusion and pain. He was aware that his family and friends would be put through their own form of suffering as he slowly wasted away. It was time for Jim to weight his options. Option A: To go through the torture and suffering ahead knowing full well that death awaited him in the end, or Option B.
      Early this week Jim made his choice and took his own life.

      I cannot judge Jim’s choice of Option B, even though I have fought and won two battles against cancer, as I have never stood at the threshold of the great unknown and had to make that fateful decision. I only wish he had chosen to have had a simple prostate examination a few years ago. If he had I would not likely be writing this missive today.

      Rest in Peace old buddy.

      Now, my friend, it is your time to make a decision. If you have not already done so, make an appointment with your doctor and set up a prostate exam. Otherwise you may have to make the choice of, Option A or....Option B.
      Respectfully
      Brian
    24. Brian Wolfe

      The Perfect Sick Day

      By Brian Wolfe,

      The Perfect “Sick Day”
      Don’t you really dislike those dedicated types who will come to work sick? After all, who needs to pick up whatever “bug” they have just because they lack the common decency to stay home. Well, I am one of those miserable sods. In all fairness, this time of the year, I have almost no human contact as my days are spent outside “in the field” (as we say). So unless I pass this cold on to a raccoon or deer no one suffers but me.

      Friday morning rolled around and I take the afternoon off on that day in lieu of payment for being on call 24/7, 365 days a year. So a cold was not about to keep me home for the morning, the night before we had experienced an ice storm and the roads were a sheet of ice. Still this didn’t deter my intentions to go to work. My wife hates riding in a vehicle when I am driving on weekends, when I am not at work of course. She says that I am not as good a driver as I think I am. I always agree with her but come back with my theory that I may not be the most skilful driver on the road but I have a great deal of luck, I follow this up with a quote from Star Wars, “Trust in the Force, Luke”. She is never impressed, as we careen our way down the highway. Here’s my reasoning. I’d rather be a lucky driver than a skilful one. Why? You never say, “Lucky bastard, he was killed on the highway”. You might say, ‘I can’t believe old Fred was killed in an accident, he was such a good driver”. I rest my case.

      It was at this time the radio announced that there were several severe accidents on the highways between here and the office. While I think I am Lady Luck’s favourite child there are times when you get the feeling she may have gone to the shopping mall leaving you on your own. Even though this was the first time in five years that I didn’t go to work I was not particularly disappointed as I had a whole day to play in the shop (Truncheon Competition project) and surfing the net, especially here on GMIC. I had intended to contact one of our members on Skype but this cold causes me to go into coughing fits whenever I try to talk for any length of time. It’s Sunday morning and my dear wife says she is still enjoying the peace and quiet. Women can be so cruel.
      After half a dozen coffees and with the new abilities to be able to thread a sewing machine while it is running, thanks to the infusion of copious amounts of caffeine, I headed to the work shop and the truncheon project and the start of the perfect sick day.
      Please include cash in any “get well” cards. Ha ha

      Regards

      Brian
    25. Brian Wolfe
      2011 Wound Down and So Did I
      It seemed that as the year wound down I did as well and I am more than a little happy that a brand new year will start in less than a week. One might ask why the turning of a page on a calendar would make any difference. Good question and the answer is that most of the things that ate up my time are on a cycle concerning my “day job”. The other reasons varied from health to having more ambition than energy.

      My duties at the Conservation Authority are concentrated around looking after the rental properties which range from farm land to rental dwellings and cottage lots surrounding two lakes. This sets the number of tenants at around the 1,000 mark. Looking after the problems of the tenants and issues connected with these tenancies takes up a great deal of time and I am the only one out “in the field” to carry out what must be done. The Director of our section, a young fellow and all around great guy, was blindsided just after he accepted his position. In typical government fashion they have decided to cut back on costs by not replacing those who leave and he inherited two extra divisions. Of course this downloaded more work on the little people (of which I am a member). The stress on him was too great and now he has accepted a position with another government body.

      The new “victim” will be hired in the early months of 2012.
      In preparation for retirement, in two to three years, I decided to start running my cabinet shop as I did years ago with profitable intentions. A rare thing happened. Usually my good intentions end up producing little. This time the workload kept me going steady until the week before Christmas. Needless to say I am going to cut back on the work I take in. I like the extra cash and my collection likes it even more. To be completely honest, with a full-time position and a sideline business, that took on a life of its own, I managed to add a good deal of material to the collection but most items were unpacked when they arrived, and after an inspection, were simply filed away in drawers.

      Also, in preparation for retirement, I decided that I wanted a larger room for my collection that was something more than simply a warehouse so I started the renovation of three rooms. This involved renovating one for a study, one a storage room and the other a work room. The study is for my collection and a place to go and read what the family refers to as my boring manuscripts. I wanted all of the furniture to match so I built all new cabinets to store the collection. I’ll feature the new study on the main section of the forum early in 2012. The storage room, as well as serving as a pantry, holds my geological collection which is in several steel cabinets comprising of rows of drawers. The work room is to carry on with such activities as stained glass, finishing small cabinets and a photographic area with proper lighting. I am still putting the finishing touches on the storage and work rooms.

      One of the events of 2011 that didn’t take as much time as energy was my victory in the second battle with cancer. I hold no unrealistic expectations of actually winning the war against my old foe as it has stalked the members of my family for generations. It certainly gives me more respect for a massive heart attack in a few years. I would consider that to be golden bullet compared with the loss of the war to the big “C”. One must always look to the bright side and hope for the best. He he.

      So that was my 2011 in a “nut shell”. I doubt that 2012 will bring any more spare time but with cutting back in the shop it should leave me with time to spend on the GMIC, which is my home away from home. One should always remember that, like money, time is something that you will seldom find, if you need more you have to make it.

      Thanks to all who have suffered through this and other blogs I’ve penned, I will do my best to bore you throughout next year. I apologize if now I’ve made you hesitant to turn that next page on the calendar. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

      Regards
      Brian
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