Another Unmarked "Poor Old Thing"
I posted in the SS buckles section about the 3 items I recently bought "out of the woodwork"; this Heer buckle was delivered to me at the same time. The friend who put me on to this was very briefly a WWII reenactor "back in the days" when everything used was original war souvenirs or surplus, the late 1970's. ( I also have the original 1938-dated Berlin-stamped zeltbahnn he used! ) He paid $25 or so for this buckle and its original belt at a local gun show and fortunately made a replica of the belt to wear. ( I've seen the original and it's pretty thin and weak. ) Subsequently he mislaid the buckle and only recently found it again stashed in a toolbox in his garage!
Unfortunately, the unmarked steel buckle had in the intervening twenty or thirty years become covered with a layer of surface rust on its face, which I removed carefully with the solvent Liquid Wrench, followed up lightly with Brasso. Too bad, too, because the detail is sharp and little-worn and the back is only lightly rusted and retains most of its feldgrau paint. When he made it a new belt he also restiched the unmarked tab, accidently reversing it in the process. Since I'd been bugging him for years about finding it, he GAVE it to me along with what I'd bought as my Christmas present! ( He said I can have the belt too when he finds it again. )
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