Daniel Murphy

Paul, The badge was presented to Walter from his lady Erika in August 1918. At some later point the catch was removed and it was added to the watch chain. Perhaps when he may have been out of uniform in the 20's -30's. It is a beautiful piece, but I am afraid it is not traceable without a last name. Nice REAL engraved badge though. Cousin Dan

Joe, You sure? At least two of them look like IVIs. An M would be a lot narrower. Dan

I agree with Bill. Dan

Chip, Well...I..uh...er...kinda forgot. And it doesn't show in the photo does it. Dan

Barney, Great work and a thrilling read. The great amount of research you have done really brings it to life for the reader. Could I get some info on the book, or is it not published yet. I would love to get a copy. Dan Murphy

Chip, I am not sure what kind of needle sterilizer would fit in there. Assuming the longer part is for the shears, the small section is only about 1/2 inch by 4 inches MAX. Perhaps some sort of small tray that needles could be placed in and put over a fire or alcohol burner. Any ideas? So we have shears for cutting the uniform or removing old bandages, brushes and soap for cleaning wounds, needles (and obviously there would have been something for stitches), bandages for covering the wounds, linen binding (for making field made splints perhaps)I suppose my two bindings of stengthened gauze from 1916 would cover that, a large triangular bandage ( I always wanted one with the printed intsructions), and a needle sterilizer. Oh, and there is that divider in the back for a first aid booklet. Didn't see that did ya? It sounds like a general purpose aid mans kit. Agreed some of the things sound like what a doctor would have used. Especially the injectibles. Dan

Claudio, WOW!! So much stuff. It is really strange seeing my documentation in there. I don't see any WW1 uniforms, flight badges , headgear and such there. Perhaps it was split up and sold over the course of two auctions. If you don't mind I am curious about what auction house it was. I will get out the uniform and post it when I have time. Dan

Chuck and all, I think that when you have something that is so obscure and RARE, that many people do not know much if anything about them and do not post. I for one have some WW1 Turkish aviation items like that and I still don't know much about them. Please don't think this is a boring thread, I love to see these early aviation items from ANY country. Back then you flew by the seat of your pants and worked on your own plane. There were no air controllers. If you got lost, you flew lower and compared the landscape to a roadmap and if you screwed up and did something stupid no matter how minor it could cost you your life. Something as simple as a cross wind when trying to land could flip your plane and get you killed. A lot of good pilots died that way. I have the utmost repect for all of these early pilots, no matter what nationality. Dan

Chip, Thanks. I figured if no one else got a kick out of this you would. You have a great collection of armbands. I just love the one with the big Prussian eagle stamp. I have never seen that Bevo? type for WW1. Here is your list of contents. 1 Hartgummikasten rait buerste und seifs. (1 hard rubber box with brushes and soaps.) 5 Verbandpaeckchen. (5 First-aid Packets) 3 Kambricbinden. (not sure on this one, some kind of binding) 1 Nadeltasche. (1 Needle Bag) Auf dem Boden: 1 Grosses dreieckiges Tuch. (On the bottom: 1 large triangular cloth.) An der inneren Seite des Deckels: 1 Schere, 1 Nadelreiniger. (At the internal side of the cover: 1 shears, 1 needle cleaner.) What the heck is a needle cleaner? If anyone else has some items like this pease post them. Dan

Tom, You need a new prescription. That MEH is marked. I can see it on the photo. Tony, that first one you posted has more pock marks than the local zit freak. Was it dug? I am willing to bet the second one has a stamped core, that high relief crown is a dead giveaway. No idea on maker though. Greg, that safety pin definitely fits the bill. OK, you have one, but you know you are the princess type. Especially if that second one is your idea of ugly. Puleese. If this were a competition I think I would wib hands down for that brass one. It doesn't get more pitifull than that. Dan

Oh, that stuff wrapped around the bottle? The directions for use. Sorry for posting so much stuff this weekend. I was off and pulled out a trunk of stuff I hadn't seen in years. It was like Christmas so I decided to post it. Dan Murphy

Here is another view giving us a shot of the seal.

Never mind that, here is a close up of the bottle.

Removing the contents we have the bottle wrapped in...what is that?

Sliding the little tin lever forward breaks the seal and releases the lid which is then swiveled aside. The container is milled from one piece of wood, not counting the lid.

This is cool. A bottle of Gas Gangrene serum. Gas gangrene may not be familiar to many of you, So I will explain it. When a person was wounded small pieces of his muddy uniform was often carried into the wound. With all of the pieces of God knows what (feces, bits of humanity, gas etc. )in the mud of the battlefield, this caused the wound to become infected. This type of infection closed over the wound, which turned green and then the wound would swell up from the gas produced from the infection. This could lead to the loss of a limb, but a head wound with this was usually fatal. Thankfully this was identified fairly early in the war and the good Doktor came up with this serum to fight it and thus save life and limb.

A roll of unmarked cotton wadding. Well, it all can't be cool.

Just a (now) rock hard rubber tourniquet. This would have been used for drawing blood, etc. Who knows how old, but it came with the rest.

Opened up.

Inside we have 5 little paper packets of catgut.

Yup, thats what it says. A little cardboard container for Catgut. Used for stitches. This one is 1916 also.

Here we have some military issue Gauze from the time of Verdun.

Close up of the bottle.

Upon removing the bottle we see it still has its original lead seal. I do believe that is a cork under the waterproofed paper. The contents are of course, long dried up.

Here we see the sealed bottle still in it's packing.