mmerc20

The reverse is blank actually.

Let me try that again. Here is the picture. Mike

I've had this for quite sometime now and never checked to see what it is. Anyone familiar with it? Mike

I suspect the silver ones might have some sort of silver content, but I am not willing to make a leap of faith to get one just to test it. Even the gold ones might be, but there is no way to tell for sure without throwing your money away. Mike

Well, I hate to do it, but I have placed my three crosses up for auction on ebay. I don't know if I'm out of line mentioning this here, but my user name is mercierarmory. They all end on the 31st. Mike

interesting. thanks a lot. I have been wanting to get some gold just to have (i collect coins too) but with the current spot price there is no way I can afford $1100+ per ounce. Getting some swiss gold would be really interesting to have and they don't command too much of a premium. Now if I could only get them at spot price or trade extra militaria for gold then I might consider it! Mike

Apparently someone tipped him off onto the guide I wrote already and this is what he sent me. What a POS. He is just dwelling on the fact that I misrepresented the waA63 of appearing in 1943. Of course he "must have to laugh at me". Perhaps if he studied in school and learned English he wouldn't have to resort to scamming people for money and get a real job. Grrrrr! I want to see this guy kicked off the site! Gunbroker says they are "investigating" which probably means they will do nothing about it. Mike

Don't despair. The El Dorado map is on ebay right now El Dorado Map

I appreciate it. This seller really rubbed me the wrong way with his childish comments and I think he is the same one trying to sell this stuff on craigslist and all the other auction sites. I have been half tempted to contact the PD in his town and get him busted. I know it's a world where it's buyer beware but it's hard for a new collector to stay with our community when there are lowlifes out there like this. We've all been there, when you are new, you just want to build up your collection and are hoping to find that really good deal to make that happen. If they are not aware of what's going, they will get turned off and our collecting community will continue to shrink. Mike

This is meant as a guide to be put up on Ebay, but it is just as important here. I will be posting it around the other militaria forums shortly Enjoy everyone. There is a saying most people have heard. "If it's too good to be true, then it probably is." I believe people who frequent Ebay know that phrase even more than others. That's why I felt a need to write this guide regarding the infamous "Nazi bullion" one might see not only on Ebay, but numerous auction sites and classifieds pages around the net. It is a fact that Germany stockpiled bullion gold and silver during the war. They had acquired it by an extensive system of theft that included from businesses across Europe and from the belongings of victims of the holocaust like dental gold, jewelry and eyeglasses. Stolen art and valuables has been a very sensitive subject since the war ended almost 65 years ago. To this day, professionals around the globe are still trying to track down and recover lost valuables that disappeared during Nazi control. It is believed that a lot of the bullion left the country in various forms (i.e. coins, bars etc). While it is not possible to prove a gold coin was a piece of "Nazi gold" a stamped bar would be. Currently under Ebay's policy, numismatic and philatelic items marked with the German swastika are permitted while other historical collectibles are not. I am not going to get into that argument because that's not what this guide is about. Bullion would, in theory, fall into the former category, however since the bullion is considered stolen by the Nazi government; it would be illegal to own and would be against Ebay's policy. Now some sellers have come up with stories like "my Grandpa brought these back from the war". Well, if he actually managed to stumble on the illusive gold or silver, he smuggled them back illegally and would still therefore be illegal to own. "But why do you think he smuggled them back?" you might ask. Well, to understand this, you have to understand the paperwork process for an American soldier to return with his war souvenirs during that time. The famous "bring back paperwork" or "capture paperwork" that can add value to a piece of militaria like that German flag or the P-38 pistol Grandpa still has stashed in the attic had to be signed by their commanding officer and he was to inspect and approve all souvenirs. On the paperwork it was to be noted that the item in question had NO INTRINSIC VALUE. Since any and all bars would be violating that, the soldier in question would have had to smuggle the bar back home. Well, if these bars are potentially illegal, why have they been popping up around the internet and no one has been arrested or ordered to return them? Well, I have to refer you to the quote from the beginning of this guide. Plain and simple they are ALL fake. These sellers are hawking fantasy pieces that are nothing more than real bullion with fake stampings. That is, I hope they are real bullion. Since someone probably applied the stampings themselves in their garage or workshop, we really have no idea how pure the bullion is short of buying one and testing it ourselves. Now who wants to fork over an excessive amount of money for something like that? In reality, since original bars are so rare, and as far as we know, not in any private individuals hands, the courts have not had the opportunity to deal with something as controversial as this. If a private individual does own one, they are not dumb enough to try to sell it on an internet auction! The following is the only photo of REAL Nazi gold stamping I could locate. Notice the nice, finely detailed oval and the evenly stamped number "9". It clearly shows that it was probably not done with a hammer and hand-held die like the fake bars are. (I do not have a photo of the whole bar) The expertise and time it would take to reproduce this quality greatly surpasses the mediocre skills possessed by the counterfeiters producing today's bars. While it is true that "gold has no smell", and thus can be hard to trace, bars of monetary gold are always well-marked with smelt numbers, serial numbers, names and purity, and are registered in the books of the banks that own or hold them. To re-smelt gold bars which have provenance is unthinkable specifically because it causes known gold to "disappear" and "creates" new gold. In the hope of avoiding detection at a later date, the Belgian and Dutch gold that the Germans re-smelted at the Prussian State Mint in 1942 and 1943 was given German smelt numbers and stamped with dates arbitrarily selected from years before 1939. (As quoted from www.usmbooks.com) The fakes do not have the professional quality of something that would be housed by a bank! This was a country that produced millions of beautiful die stamped medals, impressive looking coinage and amazing weaponry, but they didn't possess the skill or time to make a decent bullion bar? And a lot of these fakes have pre-war or early-war dates when they had a lot more time and resources to do it. Come on now! Another laughable aspect noted about the majority of the fake bars is that a waffenamt stamp of WaA63 is always used. Why would the German army weapons agency have anything to do with bullion?! Well first off, they don't. The easiest answer is because the counterfeiter saw theWaA63 stamps for sale at the same unnamed website they bought their fake eagle stamp from! Here are some examples of the (insert appropriate expletive here) that are being sold today for insane prices. Some inexperienced or uninformed people are throwing away their hard-earned paycheck in a time when money can be very tight, so this guide was written in hopes of at least convincing one person to not give their money to these crooks. Now, if we take the following bars and overlay the photos of the PHOTO OF THE STAMP from where they are sold on top of one of the bars, you will see they line up perfectly! The red markings are the exact pictures of the stamp from the website. The only thing I did was color them red and rotate and size to fit the photo (Cue trumpeting fanfare) I don't think there is any question now as to the origin of these bars. It is only a matter of time before they disappear from the market, but sadly the disgruntled sellers (AKA crooks) will find another way to try to make some more dishonest money.

I found the source of both the eagle stamp and Waa63 stamp! I'm so excited. I am not going to reveal it yet. I will be finishing up my report shortly. Mike

I lost a few of the other comments but I mentioned the fact that a weapons mark was on a bullion bar and we went back and forth a couple times. It was my understanding the the WaA63 stamp was first used in 1943 which I mentioned to him. (which will explain the 1943 part mentioned in the last comment) Finally, I sent him this: and he replied:

There is a lot of discussion around the web about these right now. Sadly the most people are getting conned on gunbroker.com. A lot of people have been buying them there. It was mentioned that actually owning one might be against the law. Since a lot of the gold stolen by the Nazis was aquired illegally (ie. from Jewish victims, stolen from jewelry stores etc) it is considered by some that the nazi marked bars are stolen property. When an American GI filled out his normal "bringback" paperwork, the company commander was to verify that not only the item was safe, but that it had no intrinsic value. Because of that they were not allowed to bring things like found bullion home. So, when these sellers say things like "my Grandfather brought this back during WWII" if for some reason it was actually real and not one of these fakes, he illegally smuggled it back. Of course I have never seen an actual one show up in private hands and until that actually happens and hits the news we will probably never know which way the courts would swing on this. My 2 cents Mike PS: I am currently writing a more in depth article on the fake nazi bullion to not only post on the forums but to use as one of those Ebay guides to help potential buyers steer clear. I had a nasty exchange of words with the biggest seller of these on ebay and I might post his comments later on.

nazi gold bar.....LOL Hmmmm...I remember something about a sucker born every minute? That guy has had that bar up for awhile and no one in their right mind would be that much for something as fake as that. Yes, it's probably gold but only worth it's weight in spot. Now I wonder if the seller is the one who did it up or did he buy it thinking it was real. I posted about these on another forum in January and some of the major points brought up were: Why wouldn't the markings look more professional and not something done in someones garage? The WaA markings are a weapons mark. Why in the world would that be on a piece of bullion? The WaA mark on this one is WaA63 which was first assigned in 1943. That makes it impossible something from 1939 would have it anyways. The eagle is ugly. One person mentioned it "would be an insult to the reich" It's good no one is falling for these. They are a rip off. They are doing it with silver bars too. Have seen them on craigslist, Ioffer and of course Ebay. They are being dumped everywhere. Mike

I have had this stick grenade for awhile and have only ever found one other example online before. There, it was listed as a Chicom practice grenade but I don't know anything else about it or if that is in fact true. Has anyone dealt with them before? Is 58 the manufacture year? Any clue what the rest says? It is in beautiful condition and since I haven't come across many to compare it to I wonder how rare and/or valuable they really are. It's outside my field of interest so I probably won't hang on to it forever although I would like to know more about it. Mike

After looking around online more I was starting to think that's what it might be. Oh well, I'm getting a lot of nice US medals out of the deal. Thanks a lot Mike

Ok. Thank you. It didn't look like any Spanish badge I have ever seen before, but I thought I would check with everyone here. I wonder what it is... Mike

I am about to buy a lot of US medals and this badge is included. The seller was informed it is Spanish, but I cannot find anything out about it. Is it Spanish? Any ideas? Thanks Mike

Thanks for posting the pictures! Mike