Any collectors of WW2 memorabilia?

[manitou]

 

If there are any Bums that are serious collectors of WWII memorabilia, please PM me and let me know. I have something that I would really like to send you for Free. Gratis. Zilch. Nada. Squat.

 

This little thing really needs to go to a collector; I'm not looking to give it to someone who will resell it on eBay.

 

The first one that convinces me that they are truly a collector gets it, if you want it...

[Taomeow]

A very generous offer!

 

I am not a collector, in fact I don't have any memorabilia from WWII except for pictures in the family album of a few relatives who were killed at the time. But I am missing a piece I used to have. I'll tell you the story, and if no one beats me with a better one, maybe I'll qualify.

 

My grandmother had a medal from WWII, she was a nurse, and the medal said, "For heroic work," and depicted Mr. Stalin. My grandmother hated him, so I found that medal one day in a box of random junk, buttons, broken costume jewelry, stuff like that. I asked her about it, she said, emphatically, throw it out, I don't want this garbage.

 

I was five, no one explained to me why my grandmother got so angry about that medal, but I immediately realized that for someone else, it could be valuable. There was a neighbors' boy, a few years older, who had tropical fish in a fish tank (my family believed I didn't need one), and the fish were fruitful and became many, so the boy used to offer the offspring either for sale (I had no money) or in exchange for something he might like. So, I showed him the medal. He got tremendously excited and told me to choose not one, but a few little fishes. And we were both very happy with the exchange.

 

After a while, I felt sorry for the fishes in a jar and let them out into a small river nearby. Well, you make mistakes at five. I just wanted them to be free. It's ironic I bought their freedom with an image of Mr. Stalin, and it's probably to be expected that it must have been short lived.

 

So, that's the story of the only piece of WWII memorabilia I ever owned. You decide.

[Vmarco]

A very generous offer!

 

I am not a collector, in fact I don't have any memorabilia from WWII except for pictures in the family album of a few relatives who were killed at the time. But I am missing a piece I used to have. I'll tell you the story, and if no one beats me with a better one, maybe I'll qualify.

 

I have a few WW2 things handed down to me (swords, stamps, guns)but never felt compelled to collect that era. However, been known to have collected stuffed Stitch's, faery figures, silver coins, and Odilon Redon genre and Buddhist art.

 

Love the idea of finding an appreciative home for something you have. I know I wouldn't give my 100+ Stitch's to just anyone,...but eventually I will give them away,...and not sell them on ebay.

 

Actually though, most of my things have been in storage since '91,...someday perhaps, I'll have an end of this life dwelling, and get to open all my boxes.

 

Manitou...I now longer collect things. Wish your item finds an appreciative home though.

[manitou]

Taomeow - I would love to give this to you because it is so feminine in nature and yet so incongruous in context. (I'm not saying you're incongruous in context, lol!) But please let me know if it would be of interest to you; if not, there is a collector here in town who is the son of a waitress I know.

 

I collect antique postcards, not to keep, but to give away to folks - like nice waitresses, or people who are having a lousy day. I try to limit myself to those postmarked after 1900 and around the Victorian era. The messages on the back can be riotous, sometimes - and people really love the little glimpse they get into a message 100 years old about kids getting the whooping cough, or pigs escaping, or getting the corn in by May, etc.

 

I found this lovely postcard (can't quite make out the year), but it was made in Germany, as the good ones seem to be. On the front is this grouping of pretty little posies - really pretty - and on the back is written in sweet little old lady's handwriting a note from Viola to her friend Marguerite. It merely said 'Better late than never'. I assume it was a birthday card.

 

As I was putting it in a plastic sleeve, something else caught my eye. There is a border around the sweet posies, and on each corner of the card is a gilded swastika that I hadn't noticed before. The incongruity of the beauty of the card with that symbol sent an actual shock through my system! I think this thing is pretty collectible and if this is something you think might remind you of your missing Stalin piece, it's yours, lol.

 

Otherwise I'll give it to the collector (who doesn't sell his stuff on Ebay either).

 

(Actually, the offer isn't all that generous after all. I think the card cost me maybe 50 cents in a dusty old antique shop in town)

 

So if you think you want it, PM me a mailing address! Actually, it would be a constant reminder that all of us, even Hitler, are One....(if we can actually accept that, everything from then on is a cakewalk, lol)

Edited December 24, 2014 by manitou

[soaring crane]

That's a generous offer, Manitou. My father is an actual collector of that stuff, but he's only interested in German military. I grew up is a pretty strange household. I'm only sharing the information, not asking to receive anything.

[joeblast]

my gramp brought back a couple model tanks taken from a german panzer commander's office one american, one german, fully done to scale, painted olive green, perhaps two and a half feet long each.

 

those things should really be in a museum.

[soaring crane]

my gramp brought back a couple model tanks taken from a german panzer commander's office one american, one german, fully done to scale, painted olive green, perhaps two and a half feet long each.

 

those things should really be in a museum.

 

about half of my father's collection landed in the museum at West Point. The illegal half...

[joeblast]

could perhaps consider my buddy's gramp's house to be WW2 memorabilia, he peddled his cig rations across the south pacific and used a nice coded system with grumma to ensure safe delivery, i.e. if one delivery didnt make it, he didnt send from that port again. built their house with that money

[manitou]

That's a generous offer, Manitou. My father is an actual collector of that stuff, but he's only interested in German military. I grew up is a pretty strange household. I'm only sharing the information, not asking to receive anything.

I can imagine the contortions your life must have taken, from growing up in a strange household, as you say, to becoming what you are today. You shine, Mr. S. Crane!

[ralis]

I was in a clients house years ago and saw an unusual antique silver tray with an ink well in the center with an engraved inscription in German. The piece was a gift from Stalin to Hermann Goering in appreciation for their friendship. The piece was dated before the war. What surprised me was that my clients were Jewish and lost family members in the holocaust.

Edited December 24, 2014 by ralis

[Taomeow]

Manitou,

 

your old postcards, and giving them to people as a token of human kindness, sound awesome. And no, I didn't mean to claim anything -- except I had this thought that if it's that medal, I would want it back. So, your collector friend gets no opposition from me!

 

I've seen a British study asserting, based on its findings, that people who live among antiques -- whether they have them at home or work at a museum or restore them for clients -- live longer and are healthier, especially their cardiovascular health was found to be much better than average. Old qi pacifies the heart?..

 

I just realized that I do own one piece of WWII memorabilia, and its acquisition (an accidental thrift shop find) caused me to research a chapter of history I knew nothing about. It is a heavy brass ash tray with industrial grade engraving on it, a gift from General Suz Tu Fu to Colonel Szaniawski, with Chinese dragons around Western military insignia. I researched it and discovered the Flying Tigers -- The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942. What a glorious flash of history!

[manitou]

Taomeow - if you don't want to claim it, I will give it to that collector in town. and what an odd study that was, about living among antiques. Who in the world would have thought to put those two things together - longevity and antiques. (Well, Duh! I just answered my own question!). LOL - perhaps it is a manifestation that equates with As Above, So Below.

 

A funny piece of synchronicity today on the postcard thing. I had two antique Christmas cards left in my hand as I was leaving the supermarket. I'd just given out a few. While walking out, I saw that a stray cart was heading at a pretty good clip down to the parking lot and would have dinged somebody's car. So I started running to catch the thing before it did any damage. Coincidentally, another old lady and another old man also saw the cart at the same time - we all reached it at the exact same moment and laughed about it. So guess who got the two remaining postcards??

 

A wonderful moment.

Edited December 24, 2014 by manitou