What was your first item?

[ObKrieger]

WW2 Luftwaffe anti-aircraft badge. Went to a gun show and came across it. He wanted 25.00 for it so I said I would go and get some money from a teller machine, but he told me to just take it. I traded it last year along with a Luftwaffe ground assault badge for a Luftwaffe m43 cap.

Coming across generous people makes this hobby so much better.

[warbuff]

Yes, it does!

[GIZMO8Z]

My fist item was this front seam, fixed bale. It was given to me by my Uncle Eddie.
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This is the first item I purchased on my own:
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[AZPhil]

My first was a Japanese type 38 School rifle I found in a friend garage.When His dad came home and I asked about it he said yes you can have it and then he said wait here is a helmet my father wore during WW2. It a WW2 M1 front seam,with liner and fixed bail that look's like it the shell was used as a cooking pot!!!!
I still have them and they got me started on collecting helmets, rifle's and bayonets for the rest of my life!!!!

[A.J. Zawadzki]

A pre-WW2 Polish hat eagle from my father, not too far removed from the one that graces my avatar on the left of your screen. Unfortunately lost way back in the boyhood years. But since replaced with 100 or so others . . .

Cheers,
Tony

[AmericanKraut]

I received my Great Grandfathers B-15a Jacket when my great Grandmother died, I was around 10-12
Since then I have been collecting everything, but expanding an AAF display in memory of my grandfather
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[helmet2id]

My first piece was a no decal M40 helmet, with a rat liner, that was sitting on the floor of my Uncle's damp cellar for for about 18 years before he gave it to me when I was 8. He also gve me one of his 3 (that's right - 3!!!!) Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in Normandy and Brittany. That was in 1962! Later on in his life he told me he took the helmet from the body of the first German he was certain that he had killed in Normandy the evening after the fire fight in which the German died. He told me he couldn't bare having it any longer - he said he felt nothing but guilt over having had to shoot "that poor German Boy." He was a BAR man in the 23rd Regiment, 2nd ID, and was in combat from D-Day until September 14, 1944 when his third horrible wound, suffered during the fighting in Brest, sent him home. I still have it, and when I die it, and the Purple Heart, will go to my son. I have been collecting ever since, and have over 500 helmets, but that one will always be special. We lost Charlie in 2009, and I miss him terribly. I also think about that poor anominous German Boy, and his family, often, and keep them all in my prayers. Jim G.

[rbminis]

I have posted this before on another thread.
My father's medals, an unmarked Klein & Quenzer EK II and a Frank & Reif silver Panzerkampf Abzeichen were handed down to me when he passed away in 1985.
I have been collecting ever since.
Ralph.

[BOB COLEMAN]

A well worn Hitler Youth armband that came from my mother's cousin. He obtained it while with the U S Army in Europe during the war. He gave it to me in 1956. I still have it.

[Wagriff]

My first piece was a Saxony spiked helmet....now, long long gone....Found it in an old guy's garage sale sitting all by itself and looking dusty for 10 dollars-which was not so cheap back in the day, but the grey front plate on it was perfect and the cockardes were both with it-even though, frustratingly enough, it only had a short bit of broken and dried chinstrap, I had to have it. I remember it had 2 signatures from, I presume, the original owner(a feldwebel?), still inside and fully readable.