If you could magically ID one item...

[landsknechte]

Out of curiosity, if you could wave a magic wand and learn the identity / background / story / etc. of the original recipient of any one of your items - what would it be?

--Chris

[joe campbell]

i have a 40 year midwife badge.

i'd love to have dinner with its recipient!

joe

[Wild Card]

Hi Chris,

Great question! This s where collecting Soviet had its? advantages... okay... just one? Let?s go with my Prussian (gold) military merit cross. I know that as soon as I post this, I?ll wish that I had chosen something else; but I will go with this one.

Thank you for asking,

Wild Card

[David Gregory]

The question is one which most collectors will ask themselves, but it really isn't easy to answer, as I have more than one item that could really tell a story if it could only talk.

Since I mainly collect Imperial documents and paperwork, which by definition are eminently researchable, my single anonymous HHOX would probably be the one item that I would most like to know more about.

However, the other single awards and ribbon bars that I have accumulated as representative examples to match the documents in my care should not be relegated by my choice of the highest award for what was quite possibly an act of almost suicidal bravery.

One man I would like to have a conversation with is an anonymous member of Feld-Artillerie-Regiment 63. I have two photographs of him. One is the standard Ausmarsch pose in uniform probably taken before he left for the front. The other shows him in the same uniform and still wearing his Pickelhaube somewhere on the front, but he looks physically exhausted, has visibly aged and his uniform looks the worse for wear. I wonder what happened to him in the time between when the two photos were taken.

A single EK2 or wound badge can be bought for pocket money today, but in most cases the stories they can tell have been lost forever.

/David

[Blitz]

That would be my 1813ek2.