militaria items you don't fancy and would never have in your collection

[sscrooge]

fire watchers helmets and gladiator helmets , bloody ugly things

[hassiman]

No Death Camp SS or GESTAPO items. I once discovered an authentic GESRAPO identity disk at a garage sale in Amsterdam. It had just come out of a dusty box that had been in an old grandmothers attic for 45 years. She wanted nothing to do with it. She said she had lost too many family members to the Germans... The memories were still fresh for her. I knew it was real and what it was worth. It had a very bad vibe to it... really. After all this was Anne Frank's city. This disk might have been involved... and certainly had been involved it many, many horrible deeds. I told her it was worh thousands of dollars and that she should sell for nothing less and consider it reparations. She was floored and thanked me profusely. For her it was a small repayment. For me it would have been blood money. I only regret I didn't take down the ID number as I would think I could have found out to whom the dik had belonged... but I have never regretted not buying it. The only other things I don't collect are pieces of live ordinance... like the live AZ-23 8.8cm nose fuze I purchased on ebay from a collector in France. Got through customs no problem.... now I'm stuck with it...

[Salzburg]

Something that has blood on it. I do not believe in ghosts, but having something in my room that has the blood of a fallen soldier just creeps me out.

I completely agree. I've just turned down an Hinomaru Yosegaki brought back by an Iwo Jima vet. Full provenance and very bloodstained. In a moment of weakness I kind of thought that it would look nice alongside my Okinawa flag (bloodless) but when I asked my wife and my 11 year old daughter how they thought about having it in the house, they both replied that they thought it was creepy. That kind of brought it home to me and I passed on it. I will continue to pass on such items and on KZ items.

[GIZMO8Z]

I really have no interest in items dealing with high ranking officers... visor caps, dress uniforms, dress swords, etc. For me, I like the type of items an average soldier would have worn or used out on the battlefield.

I also have no interest what so ever in Nazi marked china or SS porcelin... I think it's weird!

[RedArmyCollector]

Swastikas and SS related items will never be in my collection. I had a few and they detract from the point of the collection and the Nazi jokes get old really fast.

[DougB]

No interest in grave dug items, relics (unless I found them myself), Allach porcelain or dishes of any kind including the ever popular AH engraved utensils out there, Totenkopf rings (nobody agrees on what's fake or real anymore or whom the experts are anymore, plus I find them as ugly as biker junk jewelry), Julechter, and I will never, ever have in my collection anything from the Bolivian Army. :-)

[harry211]

for me anything too pristine - I like the "been there, done it" feel. As mentioned by others, I would not have anything connected with the Camps.

Also avoid "battle damaged" helmets - 2 reasons really. Firsly from my personal perspective it is too macabre to put a helmet on my shelf that is riddle with bullet/shrapnel holes knowing there may have been some poor bloke's head in it at the time they were made - a bit too much "been there, done it" for my tastes. Second reason is more practical and given my suspicious mind, it is too easy to dig up a rusty helmet worth very little and either stick a pickaxe through it, or put it on a fence and put some rounds through it, leave it a while and then, hey presto a "battle damaged" helmet worth more to some than before.

[ph3s]

Hmm, there are lots of stuff I don't collect or I wouldn't. But, ww1 Turkish militaria- I won't even touch.