Andwwils

Hello Everyone, I've looked around for an answer to this but with no luck.. did women wear the old fighter chevron as Aufseherinnen? I know that many women made up the early membership of the Nazi party and it's only logical that some of them either volunteered for, or were drafted into the SS? What do you guys think? Or know about this? I began to wonder about it after looking at images from the "Auschwitz" album showing female members of the SS and after looking at images from Bergen-Belson (post-liberation) of the SS burying the dead. THANKS!

Hello Everyone, The 1939 - 1945 India Service medal, was it awarded to non-Indians? To English forces in India? Also, was someone who was awarded the Defence Medal eligible for this award? I have seen ribbon bars with both the Defence Medal and India Service Medal represented. Some of the literature I've read online is contradictory about this. I just bought a named example of the India Service Medal and am curious.

New Guinea, British East Africa, British West Africa and Fiji all issued coinage bearing Edward VIII 's name. All are very, very common due to contemporary hoarding.

Nice mid-grade example. Most of these I come by are lower grade, cleaned - no "badly" cleaned and later dates. It used to be that chop marks de-valued a coin...but these days they sell for a premium. Congratulations on this one.

If PCGS is slabbing these things they must have some kind of providence.

Silver prices have been on a steady decline over the past year. Right now silver is trading at around 12.00 an ounce. With the high production numbers for 2008 I don't see this years Eagle as being anything more than a bullion coin in the future.

This is sad. I can just see some chain-smoker at a small flea-market or gun show spinning some wild-ass story about how various SS and LW administrative personnel had nothing better to do during the war than counterstamp (and counterstamp well I might add) late-stage Weimar-era banknotes (Series of 1929 20 RM) that weren't even legal-tender during the Third Reich years. Better buy up these notes before people start doing this to all of them. Believe it or not, the ones without the swastickas on them can be bought by the strap (100 notes) for 50 to 60$ at some of the larger shows, but you still have scabs that try to hustle them individually for a buck or so - unstamped of course.

Anybody know what von Platen died from? He was only 52, which was young even for those days.

This guy had to have been outside the realm of the traditional civil services in his civilian life career(s) following his initial military service. Given his age and the fact that military service counted towards the treudienstkreuz year count, he should have had enough "time-in" to get at least the lower silver-class by 1938. Unless his award got tangled in bureaucratic red-tape somewhere along the line. He could have been an agricultural worker - a farmer/landowner who received an agricultural deferment during the First World War or something like that. There's no way of knowing. It's all speculation I'm afraid.

Probably so Paul. Without it what you have is a field bar for a Luftschutz NCO who served at least three years in that organization to automatically get the Luftschutz II Class Medal sometime around 1942/1943ish and who *actually *probably* maybe* did something extraordinary while in the line of duty to get the KVKIIX. I have a late-war SS/Police soldbuch for a Luftschutz Oberwachtmeister who was born in 1875 who had a similar career as the person who (most likely) originally wore this bar - except my guy didn't get a KVKIIX even though he served throughout the entire war and picked up the Ehrenmedaille II along the way.

If the missing device is a Luftwaffe DA IV KL. eagle, I'm guessing that the original owner served long enough prior to WWI to get the IX year Prussian LS medal and then entered the Landwehr (maybe - 2nd ribbon) but was too busy doing something else to serve in WWI but ended-up as some-sort of Luftwaffe uniformed official during the Second World-War (he would have been pushing 70 by then mind you as evidenced by the 1897 Centennial Medal.) His technical skills may have exempted him from service in WWI. This is all pure "educated" speculation though. It doesn't explain away the absence of some kind of Third Reich civil service decoration though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these version with swords were never actually awarded where they? I remember reading somewhere that the only RK d. KVK in Gold ever officially bestowed were the versions without swords. The Reichsminister of Transportation (can't think of his name off-hand) was one of the recipients - I think.

The US Navy Good Conduct Medal has very clear-cut award criteria these days. 3 years active enlisted service = one medal. It would be very difficult (I should say "impossible") for any foreign national to get one without serving the required 3 calendar years of active enlisted service in the US Navy.

He spent a long time as a Gefreiter - 5 years give or take!

The device on his shoulder boards looks kind of like a numeral "7."

The US coins appear to be $10 gold pieces and by the markings on the white card, are all 1900 dated coins. They may be different dates, can't tell by the scans. Those gold coins are worth around 600 to 800 USD or so each in today's market, maybe more depending upon grade. Really, in comparison to the current market value of the Orders shown, the gold coins are pocket change - literally.

I think the orange color was used only by recruiting officials.

By the way, the above pictured tractor would probably run you around 30,000 USD to 40,000 USD retail if you could find one for sale here in the United States. They aren't exactly common-faire. WWII scrap drives were hard on pre-war machinery.

I think the tractor on these earlier orders may be a caricature of one of the many models of Yuba farm crawler tractors made in Marysville, California by the Ball Tread-Yuba Manufacturing Company between 1918 and 1931. If any of you have a copy of the "Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors" by C.H.Wendel you can see several pictures of Yubas on pages 285 and 286 which are the only thing in the American-agricultural canon that come close to matching the machine pictured on these early Orders of Lenin. The machine underneath Lenin may be Soviet or European in origin, but in my opinion that would be EXTREMELY unlikely. Here's the only image of a Yuba that I have:

Khrushchev allegedly hated cigarette smoke, but it looks like he's tolerating Brezhnev's habit in that top photo.

Does anyone know what make and model the Soviet crawler-tractor on these is supposed to represent? I know the Soviets imported a lot of farm machinery from the United States - and that tractor doesn't match anything I'm familiar with from that era of manufacture here in America. Just wondering.

The reverse has been struck with an off-center die. I agree, the general quality is poor. I would avoid something like this. Check to see if it has any silver-content. I'm betting it doesn't.

Basically someone has taken what has traditionally been a standard entry-level collector note with valid history behind it worth about 1.50 USD and turned it into a completely worthless (numismatically speaking) rag that will probably end-up being burnt by any collector with common-sense - or cut to eliminate the erroneous SS stamp on it by some diehard purist.

Winkler has/had a set of Leutnant-grade feldpost officer boards available on his site the last time I checked. They weren't priced too high I think.

Just to add to what Rick said, go slow and don't put a lot of pressure on the bullion wire. I've done this with a set of Heer regular officer tabs that had melted wax on them and they turned out ok. Have patience though while doing it.