What got you into collecting Militaria?

[kylesbullets]

Hey again guys. Again Ade. This probably isn't the right forum for the thread but what the hell right? So my question is fairly simple. What got you into collecting Militaria? And ofcourse ill tell what got me into it.So i was bored one day. Browsing the Internet and i came across: Militaria tweede wereldoorlog - Marktplaats (WW2 militaria section to sell on the Dutch Ebay)
So i began viewing this and looked at a gas mask i liked wich also is my first ever WW2 item. Asked my parents if i could bring a bid on it and they said yes. So i saw the price tag and that also was a bit ''Interesting''. Placed a bid of 5 euro less and i won the auction . And so my collection began. Now tell me yours

- Bas

Same here!

[FrankBooth]

When I was a kid, my dad built model control line airplanes. He and I started to build them together and some of them were military models. I started to study images and books about military aircraft. I then branched out into building models of armor and figures in smaller scales like 1/35th. I liked building the German kits as they were just neater looking to a kid than the standard OD colored Allied vehicles and armor. I lived on a military base in Pickle Meadows California and it was in caretaker status and my dad was one of the caretakers. The base was built to train Marines for Korea and there were bins and bins of surplus just sitting around in the warehouses and barracks and it was all but abandoned so I started to collect items here and there. The hills around the base were full of old bunkers, mg pits, foxholes, etc and there was a lot of items scattered around there that I picked up as well. That sort of started me with collecting. I was also involved in the Boy Scouts and I imagine that's what peaked my interest in Hitler Youth items when I started to collect Third Reich. It seemed they were not very popular and the prices were somewhat reasonable when compared to other subjects of Nazi Germany. I've quit and sold off a few times but always seem to come back and each time my collection is better than the last in terms of "difficult" items and focus. Who knows, maybe I'll decide to stop again sometime in the near future, or just continue on.

[Reynard]

Two reasons here... One is several cases of papers and some medals that I inherited from my grandfather. Dad never sorted them out, so they're only just seeing the light of day after several decades. It's been quite the voyage of discovery...

The second is slightly more unusual; a decorated pen at a cat show back in 2009.... The theme for the show (GCCF Supreme Show - the UK's version of Crufts for cats) was "Hard Times", and I got this vision of Captain Manwairing from Dad's Army in my head saying "Don't you know there's a war on..." So I was inspired to do a WW2 decorated pen based on a Home Guardsman's garden potting shed and the Dig for Victory campaign. So I found stuff on boot sales to dress the pen, went to the Imperial War Museum to look around their WW2 displays etc, and got hooked.

My decorated pen went on to win the overall best in the competition, beating over 1000 other pens.

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[guns ltd]

I came from a military family. My Great great grandfather was a general in the union army during the civil war in an Ohio unit. My mother has a picture of him. My grandfather was in a army medical unit in France during WWI. My father and uncles were in WWII and brother in Vietnam. My family would talk about their war time experences with me. I started watching wars movies at a very young age during the early 60's. My dad took me to see the Battle of Britain when it was in the theater. I use to watch Rat patrol on TV. Never missed an episode. My dad and grandfather would bring out some of their military stuff and talk to me about what it was. I have all of these items with the stories that go with them. My brother to this day will never talk about his vietnam duty. My father had his uniforms and we would play army. I do remember when I brought home my first M1 and he took it a part in a second. I was really star struck over how he remembered how to do this after all these years.
Got into the Firearms business 27 years ago. And I really got into collecting then with a lot of WWII items coming in as my customers found out I liked this stuff. And the history that went with each item.

[Gunny Hartmann]

As a kid I always wanted to be a soldier and from an early age I read war books, mostly about WWII and the war in Europe. My family fought on both sides. When I enlisted, the 1954 Draft Law was in effect, which mandate eight years military obligation. I wasn't going anywhere so I took a burst of six with a two-year extension and ended up assigned to a tank company in Berlin. Being in Berlin in the mid 1950's to early 60's provided me with a hands-on opportunity to to learn about the rise of the NSDAP and the war. When I got home, I went to college and majored in modern German history, with a modern military history emphasis. I started writing books and articles on various aspects of US and German military history in 1978 and continued until 2002 with the publication of my last book. During that time I collected, or maybe it's more accurate to say I gathered, a wide assortment of artifacts related to the books I wrote. I found that when researching a topic, I got a better feel for it if I could actually handle, and sometimes wear, things that had actually existed during the period about which I was writing. Over the years the result was that I collected artifacts for every book I published and today I have the cream of the crop displayed in my study. A great deal of my collection consists of rare books, which serve both as treasures of another age and excellent references. I have nearly two-hundred rare books dealing with WWI, my speciality. For me, and I think for all of us, collecting is a learning experience that never stops. Dwight

Wow based in Berlin in the 50s and 60s, that must have been so interesting
What got me in to collecting?....as a kid all i wanted was a German helmet!......

[Larry C]

watching the TV series "Combat" and "Rat patrol" as a youngster,,,after witnessing a live execution on TV during the Vietnam war,, kind of soured it for me. Battle of the Bulge and Tobruk got me moving again!

[history-buff1944]

watching the TV series "Combat" and "Rat patrol" as a youngster,,,after witnessing a live execution on TV during the Vietnam war,, kind of soured it for me. Battle of the Bulge and Tobruk got me moving again!

Ditto the above. Also when I was a kid, my mother showed me a Destroyer War Badge that was given to my Grandfather by the German Sailor who it was awarded to. I still hasve the Friedrich Orth made badge.