Mint unissued Spange zum Eisernen Kreuz 1. Klasse mit Etui u. Karton

[TWS]

Story time. If tl;dr just skip to the photos. One of the first pieces of militaria I ever acquired. It was in the early 80’s and I was still just a kid. A childhood friend who lived in my neighborhood lived with his grandparents and the grandfather was a WWII veteran. One day my buddy and I were hanging out in his grandparent’s large house when we decided to explore a storage room upstairs. To our delight we discovered a box of “Nazi” awards and documents that the grandfather had brought back as souvenirs. We showed his grandfather and he regaled us with the tale that shortly after the end of the fighting, he was able to go to Berlin. There in the area of the destroyed Reichs Chancellery he came across a Russian tank soldier who was carrying a large bushel basket. Inside was all manner of awards. The Russian graciously gave him a few handfuls of awards – I don’t recall if it was some kind of trade or a gift. He also wandered around the ruins of the Chancellery and helped himself to a few stacks of documents. To our joy, the grandfather told us that we could have the “stuff” as he had no use for it and hadn’t even laid eyes on it for years. My buddy gave me about a third of the contents of the souvenir box, keeping a double share for himself. No problem, it was his grandfather after all. When I got home I showed my parents what I had acquired and while they were ignorant of the collector value of the items they thought it was too ostentatious of a gift and made me return part of my haul! A few years later when I was a full-fledged collector I explained to them about how collectible the items were and they shared my regret at making me return some of them, especially as my buddy had squandered his share. Luckily this Spange is one of the items I hung onto.

[Rescue190]

Simply WOW!!! Todd. Great backstory as well.
John

[rbminis]

That's quite a stunner Todd!
I can see why you held on to this one, congrats!
Any photos of the reverse?
Ralph.

[TWS]

That's quite a stunner Todd!
I can see why you held on to this one, congrats!
Any photos of the reverse?
Ralph.

Thank-you sir!

I think when I took it out - I keep it in storage, surrounded by silica gel packs, never out on display - I was afraid to actually touch the Spange. So sorry but no reverse photos. It had been years since I'd looked at it and I was re-astounded (if that is a word) by its condition. I donned soft cotton archivist gloves just to handle the case and carton.

[MAP]

You've been hiding this gem from us till now? Wow! Amazing

[TWS]

You've been hiding this gem from us till now? Wow! Amazing

I've been hiding it from myself too!

I need to dig out some of the other crazy stuff I got from that souvenir box. The grandfather wandered around the Chancellery and I've got a birthday card to Hitler etc. that he picked up. The documents used to reside in my parent's basement safe but I have them with me here somewhere these days.

[Chopperman]

Beautiful

[BodhiEtheridge]

Wow, that is probably one of the best if not the best example I’ve ever seen! Looks like it was made yesterday. Quite the find!

[raz]

Beautiful Todd . I have one and it looked just as nice when i got it in the 60's ( I never took pictures of my collection until I retired ) and it stayed nice till I made the mistake of displaying it open a couple years ago . Now look , within 2 months ( I didn't pay attention ) it lost all the frosting which really surprised me and disappointed me for sure . Humidity here is a killer . Keep it locked up tighter than a drum to preserve it !
Dennis

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[rolandsfpr]

That a great story and sphange as well,just stunning!