Bravo. The black uniform was worn by all branches of the SS more or less in the period 1934-1939/40, and was worn and retained longer than the ding dong "collector" books might have you believe,by BOB COLEMAN
to say nothing of gun show old wives and their odd tales.
Thanks. I am a skeptic by nature, but as an old man who has done this for most of his life, I find the present world wide digital biotope of militaria really quite a miracle.
Also, the media interest in Hitler and the III. Reich seems well able to leap generations. What is true is that a group of young Americans and young Europeans cannot
afford this regalia, perhaps, the way I could as a young person. That is wholly true. SS regalia was rare in its time. It is more rare today, and there will always be
the determined person who can distinguish the fake from the authentic. I know, because I spend a part of each day in such instruction to three or four people a week.
I am aided by the world's best authorities and their fabulous collections.
What is also likely the case is that certain persons who have an entitlement complex, that they be spoon fed by us, will fail to launch as collectors,
in which case they can post pictures of their food on "Twitter," or look at nice pictures of cats. Or pictures of Russian dashboard cameras and examples of poor driving.
There is something for everyone in the cosmos.
The collecting of SS regalia, however, tests character and intellect as much as the bank account.
Any downward curve in the market would only be due to the lack of self education on the part of collectors. Yes, the fakers use the forums to learn. Many collectors use the forums instead of doing their own due diligence. I see so often a thread on "is it real?" that could be easily solved by using our search engine. Lazy collectors will always be an eventual victim to fraud. I have been hearing the argument of doom and gloom due to fakes since the early 1970's We are still here and the prices have not been effected in a downward direction. The difference is back then, we had to work at learning the genuine from the trash. Today, it is much easier to suck from those who have gone through what is necessary to learn.
BOB
LIFE'S LOSERS NEVER LEARN FROM THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS.
Thank you, Bob. Your perspective is all the more remarkable, since your collection formed the basis of one of the very, very first books on Nazi caps in that
year of miracles, 1968! You have been a force for education since that distant time, and we have all greatly profited because of it. You also built this site
with Adrian Stevenson and the others, and you have set the highest standard and arranged for good order and discipline.
The high end dealers all bombard me with weekly warnings as to how my collection is now worthless, and, at the same time, I receive multiple quasi hysterical notes from persons begging me to sell them my things.
and here is evidence of the lack of interest in this regalia.
T[B]here are currently 2656 users online. 73 members and 2583 guests[/B]
Most users ever online was 14,274, 05-12-2013 at 05:08 PM.
I say and write two thousand five hundred and eighty three guests.....
Please explain to me what these people are doing here?
Where are the pictures of cute cats and Russian dash board videos of plane crashes into the Moscow Ring Road?
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 12-16-2015 at 11:02 PM.
Our traffic is multiples of the ding dong site, by the way.
Since I spend a lot of time in Vienna, and all my friends there do employ Freud with fluency, let me include this little piece for the reflection of the more thoughtful among you.
"....Defense Mechanisms
Sigmund Freud (1894, 1896) noted a number of ego defenses which he refers to throughout his written works. His daughter Anna (1937) developed these ideas and elaborated on them, adding five of her own. Many psychoanalysts have also added further types of ego defenses.
Freud once said, "Life is not easy!" The ego -- the "I" -- sits at the center of some pretty powerful forces: reality; society, as represented by the superego; biology, as represented by the Id.
When these make conflicting demands upon the poor ego, it is understandable if you feel threatened, fell overwhelmed, feel as if it were about to collapse under the weight of it all. This feeling is called anxiety, and it serves as a signal to the ego that its survival, and with it the survival of the whole organism, is in jeopardy.
In order to deal with conflict and problems in life, Freud stated that the ego employs a range of defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms operate at an unconscious level and help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e. anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.
The ego, driven by the id, confined by the superego, repulsed by reality, struggles to master its economic task of bringing about harmony among the forces and influences working in and upon it; and we can understand how it is that so often we cannot suppress a cry 'life is not easy'! If the ego is obliged to admit its weakness, it breaks out in anxiety regarding the outside world, moral anxiety regarding the superego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength of the passions in the id. (Freud 1933, p. 78)...."
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 12-17-2015 at 01:28 AM.
I would also commend to you the encyclopaedia that Mr. Mint has built here, to say nothing of thousands of posts by other very expert persons, which give the beginner a resource that none would have dreamed as being remotely possible even as recently as a decade ago.
I warrant you that not all these things are perfectly linear, but through the selfless ness of a critical few as well as the marshaling of decades of extraordinary experience,
the collector is seven leagues ahead of where I was as a beginner.
The fakes were not as good, then, but there were still many fakes.
What is also true is this: if you rely on "authorities" whose sole purpose is to scare away new collectors and to keep the swag all for themselves, then you won't get far.
We see this process elsewhere.
It does not operate here, not the least because of Bob Coleman and all the other stalwarts, including Mr. Mint. The work by the latter deserves its full measure of honor
and merit for what is an extraordinary accomplishment and which he should make into a book.
I am not sure how you make it all into a book, with a beginning, middle and end, but a book it should be.
There are lots of sections of knowledge here that are wholly unique, but they are not very linear.
It's good to hear the highly knowledgeable and literate speak their mind. I know how much time this takes, and how it can suck your energy... and how precious time is. Right now, I should be working on a truck that has a charging system problem, but I've had enough outside already and it is too cold.
So I'm in here catching up, but I really should be out there...
For someone to give us this much of their time even though they have nothing much to gain besides a little appreciation speaks volume about generosity of the spirit. It's not that common really... I'm here and there in the world and I see, and don't see that much of it.
Some people are born to teach, or share knowledge acquired, so it won't be lost. Only so many people can be receptive to the knowledge. We're all a little different, we all understand some things in life better than others.
Well it's time for me to go back outside before the light is gone, to enjoy frozen hands and feet...
This is what it looks like here today (this morning when the sun broke through), surprise snow storm in the night and clear and cold today, just like winters use to be in a bygone era. That's my sweetheart Nordic skiing in the yard, like we use to, skiing right from the front door. The outdoors, a great remedy for too much time on the computer
Two different worlds.
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