My Ciney find: a very rare 1st variant 2-piece Excellent Artillerist badge

[Marcel Banziger]

Today was the autumn edition of Europe's biggest fair, the Ciney show in Belgium. There's so much to find but one has to look very good and dig deep through tons of stuff to find some gems. But the search paid off. I managed to find a very rare 1st variant Excellent Artillerist badge. This 1st variant has a seperate hammer/sickle connected with two fragile pins. It was not cheap but I am very happy to now also have a 1st variant. Especially since these are almost impossible to find. I'm a happy camper now

Here's the badge:

[Bjorn S]

Great score Marcel! I was in Ciney yesterday as well, and had it in hand. It's a really nice early piece, and the quality is very good. Did you manage to find other things? There was not much Soviet stuff to be found this time, but I found some small things (will post it later).

[Marcel Banziger]

Next time we should meet!
I did find one more item. An early wartime Mosin Nagant sling in well used condition. That's all I managed to find. As you say, not much Soviet stuff unfortunately. Looking forward to see your scores!

[Bjorn S]

Yes, we should meet next time in Ciney, or maybe at the show in Houten?
I will make a new thread for my purchases.

[Marcel Banziger]

Will also be at the next Houten show yes!

[Dom]

Very beautiful this one

[Thedutchjelle]

So Ciney is like Houten but bigger in that regard? I've gone to Houten a few times myself but was rather underwhelmed - it just seems to be 95% Nazi stuff at this point.

As for your badge: Very nice. I like the details on it a lot. What year were these kind of badges produced?

[Marcel Banziger]

Houten is a small market compared to Ciney. Ciney is two big halls, an indoor, heated hall, comparable to Houten. Then there's a second, cold and drafty hall which is usually for dealing cattle with row after row after row of tables with sellers. The majority is German WW1 and WW2 and British and US but also lots of French and Belgian items. Plus of course the huge amount of crap and modern items. The Japanese and soviet collector needs to dig deep to find good items but still these can be found when one digs deep enough.

This one is the earliest model of the Excellent Artillerist and is from 1942.