On the eve of a New Year, thanks to a few people.

**BenVK** · 12-31-2012, 10:16 PM

2012 was probably the worst year I've ever had in terms of collecting SS artifacts. I just didn't find any!

But it was also the year that I learn't the most about the generosity of like minded collectors who, despite constant attack from disingenuous sources, have continued to bear the torch of knowledge, education and enlightenment.

It's not been easy to moderate, especially on the SS forum where disagreements can and have lead to many unsavoury situations.

However, thanks to Ade and Bob and the whole support of the warelics team, I genuinely believe we a good thing going here.

Wishing you all the best for 2013.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 12-31-2012 10:16 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**SSamir** · 12-31-2012, 11:05 PM

2012 was OK I guess from a financial stand point, but a good year for me on WRF. I made lots of new and great friends here. Lots of people here ready to offer their knowledge for free of charge without being rude. I learned lots of things here in a short period of time and I want to thank the great members here for the kind help they have offered me. I also want to thank the mods here for a doing a great job on moderation. I give the mods lots of credit for being patient with me when I did get out of hand with my humor! LOL! Again, thanks everyone and wish you all a happy new year!

Kindest Regards
Samir

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-31-2012, 11:20 PM

Thank you, Ben, for your fine intervention.
Thanks to you, Adrian and Bob for your signal role here.
A happy new year to you and yours, and may you find what you seek in the year to come.
cordially, FB

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-31-2012, 11:24 PM

On the eve of a New Year, thanks to a few people.

The real good fortune in collecting is good company, which is doubly difficult nowadays because those of us who adhere to 20th century customs about behavior, language, ideas, and such are under endless assault from those for whom this appliance is a weapon. Or, who become the victim of cyber bully collectors who want to prevent others from collecting this material.
Ben is the kind of collegial and energetic, but also spirited, collector scholar who enriches our work, and whose critical eye and skill as an artisan-craftsman further enliven and deepen our collective examination of the conflicted and complicated bits of the past.
Many others here have associated themselves with a combined, joint approach to the odd cosmos of the cast off thingies of the Heini Himmler's schwarzes Korps, which we treat as parts of the past worthy of interpretation, and hardly as fetish objects for right wing esoterica and the promotion of hatred in the 21st century. Ben has promoted the agenda of handicrafts, context, of the people who made these things as much as those who might have worn them, and that is a fine goal.
Happy new year, and may Ben find some SS stuff in the welter of the digital market.
If I am crushed at the bottom of the fiscal cliff, I will have a fire sale in which he can scoop up the burnt offerings.
May the rest of you fly happily above fiscal cliffs, your foreheads free of pressure, to pluck baubles of regalia from passing clouds naked of care and enriched through the miracles of the 21s century.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-31-2012, 11:33 PM

This appliance does not soften my blow as I cascade off the fiscal cliff with the dawn of 2013.

**cornish1** · 12-31-2012, 11:46 PM

Likewise i would like to thank everybody on this site for sharing or helping with their seemingly endless knowledge towards not only my questions/querys but anyones elses!.i am constantly amazed at how much you guys know ands its sooooo interesting! And a big congrats to all mods and site admin for keeping this a most pleasant and reliable site. Happy new year!! and Thank you!!
Mark

**BenVK** · 01-01-2013, 12:21 AM

by Friedrich-Berthold

If I am crushed at the bottom of the fiscal cliff, I will have a fire sale in which he can scoop up the burnt offerings.
May the rest of you fly happily above fiscal cliffs, your foreheads free of pressure, to pluck baubles of regalia from passing clouds naked of care and enriched through the miracles of the 21s century.

I don't think I've ever read such fine words, magnificent my dear friend, I'm truly touched.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-01-2013, 12:24 AM

by BenVK

I don't think I've ever read such fine words, magnificent my dear friend, I'm truly touched.

Thank you, Ben, all the best to you.

**jHAM** · 01-01-2013, 05:24 AM

by Friedrich-Berthold

Thank you, Ben, for your fine intervention.
Thanks to you, Adrian and Bob for your signal role here.
A happy new year to you and yours, and may you find what you seek in the year to come.
cordially, FB

I wholeheartedly agree with what you have written here F-B. My thanks and wishes for a prosperous new year go out to Ade, Bob C., BenVK, d'alquen and a few others who must forgive me for not mentioning them. Most important for me is to thank F-B for his stellar work here and for opening new avenues undreamed of before his influence. Best wishes to all for the new year! New horizons await us.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-01-2013, 05:35 AM

by jHAM

I wholeheartedly agree with what you have written here F-B. My thanks and wishes for a prosperous new year go out to Ade, Bob C., BenVK, d'alquen and a few others who must forgive me for not mentioning them. Most important for me is to thank F-B for his stellar work here and for opening new avenues undreamed of before his influence. Best wishes to all for the new year! New horizons await us.

Dear Friend, my warm thanks to you and best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2013. We all appreciate your fine role here and your interest and enthusiasm for the history of the III. Reich and its uniformed organizations as a project of knowledge and learning versus madness about "crimped prongs" and gun show old wives tales broadcast onto a naive global population.
A handful of us approach all of this with a search for cause and effect, for context, as well as more of the truth based on historical sources.
This undertaking summons strong resistance in certain persons, but your endorsement and active participation here is central to the endurance and success of this site.
Guten Rutsh ins neue Jahr! FB

PS And when you think about poor Elsie Beckmann being lured to her doom by the murderer in M (my beloved Peter Lorre, from Ruzemberok in central Slovakia) then it is the uninformed collector who is lured to their regalia seeking doom by the mountebanks, confidence artists, and digital lions on a wobbly throne on these sites, many of whom are dealers, to be sure, but also include such figures as dishonest collectors in their number as well as self styled internet wonders and savants who could no more find the crapper in the Stuttgart main train station or even find Germany on a map rather than explain to the over credulous the finer points of the III Reich and its regalia.

Thus, to all of you of sound character and collegial bearing, our warmest regards and salute.

...and to all internet guardians of the holy stitch, nut house check lists, crimped prong depot wardens, and droopy "5" as in the holy "52" dogmatists, and especially to those from somewhere else who burst in here to collapse the ceiling on those who built this site......a most heartfelt: Pfui!

PSS I also want to recall the memory of the late Richard P, a fellow collector whom I only have known via this medium, whose untimely death this year was a loss for us all. We salute him, as well.