Another piece of history ruined for profit

[Jerry B]

Most of these albums never see the light of day or benefit the public, but just sit on the shelf of some collector.


Selling these photos gets them into the hands of people who will appreciate them, Thanks. JRP[/B]

A bit of a contradiction here I think.

tossers, lowest sort of scum.

I bought some piccies that had obviously been taken out of a group, but got outbid on others from the same group/seller, then a few weeks later they came up for sale again and this time I was the only bidder and got some of them for less than I had been outbid on first time around, though sadly not all of them.

[Spitace41]

Their argument that the album cannot be researched is a load of crap IMO. I may be being naive, but surely all of the serial numbers on the side of the DUKW and landing craft could be researched? Maybe even find out what units were transported in them? Its a possibility surely, and one that I would have thought a museum would be in a perfect position to explore. Also, whats the downed bomber? You can clearly see the name on the side (My Gal Friday), got to be some research potential there?

[Bill T]

Absolutely guys. You already know how I feel about the whole thing........ It even makes me mad to think that the shell of the album with the captions is now probably sitting in a trash bin somewhere. And as stated already, there was certainly research potential in that album, and his "good intentions" are what appear to be a disguise for greed. He could have sold the whole album for more than what he paid for it, and still made a decent profit IMO. Thats All I have to say about these unfortunate actions! Lets hope that he realized what he did was wrong, and wont do it again in the future

[Doppelgänger]

Yeah, it's sad, and ridiculous. Especially when the album is undoubtedly worth more as a whole. The right person (if they had bought it to sell and got a good deal on it) could have easily made a bundle just selling/reselling it with a better ad, better pics... who knows?

But I do know this. Parting something out is not necessarily a money maker. In fact, it's more than likely a money loser, not to mention shipping 20 or 30 pics to different buyers... It borders on the insane, and it is stupid.

While dabbling in vintage guitars over the years, and watching people part them on on feeBay (I'm not talking about 1957 Strats here, and that goes on too and it's sick and stupid as well), but just your average vintage guitar like an 1980 Gibson The Paul I picked up at a pawn shop dead nuts original to the last screw for $500. Cleaned it up, restrung it, took lovely photos. Sold in a couple days to a Scottish gent for $1200. At the very same time, one of these "professional" guitar dismantlers got a hold of the same exact year and model of guitar, sold it in as many pieces as possible, and to end up shipping the body here, the pickups there, the tuners somewhere else, the knobs somewhere else, etc, etc... he netted a whopping six hundred something dollars. Just by keeping something together that should have been kept together I netted $400 more in one transaction, this this seller did in ten...

But the true crime here is what he did to the picture album. This is a person, who's not too bright, has no respect for history at all, no respect for the GI who took these pics. To comment anymore would border into the realm of name calling...

[ZigZag]

Its the same mindset as the "Greatest Destroyer of Historical Documents"....Upper Deck Trading Cards. The documents they have destroyed for the purpose of "Cut Insert" cards is unbelievable.

[cricketchris1944]

I would have bought the album.
Looks like some really interesting pictures.
chris

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Sadly, this kind of thing isn't just done with photo albums. I have a set of medals to Pte Barclay James Stewart who won the Military Medal at the battle of Arras in 1917. I purchased them off ebay a good while ago. The MM was missing though - probably sold as a seperate lot. Along with the medals was Pte Stewart's cap-badges and shoulder-titles for the Royal Highlanders and also the Machine Gun Corps. The seller said he would break up the set into seperate lots if no one purchased them.

Last year I purchased (off ebay) a French helmet which had been discovered in a barn in 1993. Inside was a newspaper that was dated from May 1940. The same seller was also selling as a seperate lot the water bottle found with the helmet. I managed to purchase both items to re-unite them, but I was too late to purchase the waterproof cape which was also found with them. I only purchased them to keep them together. They are really not of any interest to me!

The same thing is done with valuable antique books which are stripped of their prints to frame up and sell on for profit.

I have no doubt that in (hopefully many) years to come that my own diaries, medal and photographs of my army service in Ireland will fall in to the hands of a collector and may be broken up.

It is sad that these things happen. But once this property becomes someone elses property it is for them to decide what to do with it. And if they wish to break it up and sell individual items for profit, then that is their affair. If you do not like what is being done you should purchase the album yourself. And the museum did have a point about private sellers buying these albums. Once they are purchased they are indeed removed from public view.

I dare say my thinking on this subject may irritate some of you. So let me make my position quite clear on this. I DO NOT AGREE with this kind of practice. But it has always gone on, and it always will. There are people out there who only view these collections as an opportunity to make a decent profit from their outlay. They are not interested in their historical value. I do my best to keep certain items together. But you will never stop this kind of thing from happening.

[cricketchris1944]

This is really sad.
No real Museum would sell any of their item and sure not broke the collection to pieces like this
This is just a private collection open to the public.
Very very sad.
chris

[AmericanKraut]

Happens all the time I tied to buy as much as I could of a 99th ID and 3rd USMC album that were being parted out on ebay, the pictures will never be together again...
I offered the seller 300$ for both but he said he could get way more by selling them individually...

One happens to be my avatar!

[3986QMTC]

One of my uncles had a photograph album that sat in a drawer for 20 years after his death, and around 90% of the pictures are not annotated or otherwise identified. A large number of them were taken on his postwar visit to the Switzerland Leave Center and his ski trip to Lenzerheide, but there are some taken - mostly in France - from July '44 to the end of the war. He was a motor vehicle maintenance officer with a QM truck company, and his WWII experiences were far more benign than that of my infantryman uncle; the photos are mainly of other officers and the various dogs & kids that they "adopted" when they were billeted somewhere for any length of time. As Europe was very different than his native Iowa prairie, many photos are just pictures of scenery that struck his fancy.

He and my aunt had no children, and as I was the only one of the nephews who was really interested in what he did in "the war," I was given the album by my aunt's executors. Once I'm gone, there will be nobody left in the family who heard any of his stories firsthand, or who will be able to add any context to the pictures (not that I can add a lot). Since transportation is a lot more mundane than combat, there will probably be no real interest in the photos once they leave my hands. It's sad to think about, but it's the likely scenario.

He told me about being billeted in a chateau (his term) in or near the west part of Rouen in early 1945, and of the groundskeeper's children who became great favorites of the men; attached is a photo from the album showing the enlisted men, some children and at least one of the PWs who did some maintenance work.

G. Kelly

Attachment 549878

ETA: I thought I'd append a few more miscellaneous pictures from this album:

Picture 1. The overturned GMC 6x6 is in the Neckar River southeast of Heidelberg, and the notation on the back reads, "One of 'my' trucks that rolled over three times, killing two PW's and injuring 7 more."

Picture 2. On a much lighter note, two American officers find a gentleman wearing a turban while sightseeing. No notation.

Picture 3. What goes on 4 km from Pforzheim, stays 4 km from Pforzheim. Again, no notation... and probably just as well.