I thought it would be a nice place to discuss historical artifacts that you own. NO POLITICS, JUST HISTORY. I'll start with my collection: Weapons: WWI American Helmet: Chinese Communist Party Army Hat: (Possible Replica) Berlin Olympics Judges Badge: Das Reich Weltkrieg NR. 23 (traslation: The Empire World War): Now show off your collection!
I've found a few historical trinkets at thrift shops over the years. "Good Conduct" medal WWII Army Air Force patch (attached tag has the dates of service from 1942 - 1950) Lapel pin from the 1939 World's Fair (missing the dongle at the end of the chain but this was among my great grandfather's belongings and passed on to me) Employee Badge from the Wabash Railroad And... A deck piece of the USS Iowa, removed as part of the ongoing restoration effort. The brown color is unique in that it can only be achieved through years of repeated exposure to salt water.
Man, that is a killer! I've gotten my stuff from bouncing around Flea Markets, Except for the knives, those were thing my dad found while cleaning out an apartment a decade ago and decided too just give them to me (about 4 months ago)
For full disclosure, the deck piece wasn't from a flea market, I got it directly from visiting the USS Iowa itself - at the end of the self-guided tour they had a big box of deck wood fragments and a sign saying you were free to take one and all they wanted in return was a $5 donation. The gift shop had "finished" pieces of wood for $10 but I like the "rough" look of my piece, which even has one of the original bolts in it still. The problem is it has a bunch of gunk that rubs off, which is why its been sealed in that ziploc since the day I got it - one day I'm going to talk with a wood expert to basically "seal" the piece so it will stop disintegrating.
This is a cool idea for a thread! I have several silver dollars from the late 1800's. Back in the mid 90's when I was a manager at McDonalds, some kid brought in a bunch of coins that I had never seen before to purchase some burgers. There was a promotion for $0.29 hamburgers and $0.39 cheeseburgers, so he bought quite a few. I asked the kid, "Where'd you get these coins?" He said, "My Grandpa has a bunch of these." There was no internet back then and I couldn't tell if they were real or counterfeit, so I swapped those coins out with my own money and kept the coins. Turns out they were real and I still have them today. For S&G's I looked up a few on eBay and one of them from that year is going for $230.00.
I would post a pic if I could, but I don’t know how; the reason being is my family has an old, empty mind you, training bomb shell from WWII that my dad’s father had obtained from his time in the Army Air Corp. My dad has the thing hanging from his ceiling as a teenager.
Flea Markets are great to find people selling various trinkets and whatnot, usually the remains of estate sales. For example, the Wabash Railroad badge I showed earlier in the thread, which I have since learned is a brakeman's badge, when I asked the seller where he got it (the flea market in question is only about 30 minutes from the southern edge of Ohio and the Wabash operated at the other end of the state), all he could recall was that he'd picked it up from an estate sale a few years back.
Yeah, that tends to happen at flea markets. The guy I usually get my stuff from (He goes to the same flea market every year) when my friends and I were talking to him about how he gets his stuff (we are all collectors) and he goes door to door and asks people if they have any artifacts they will be willing to sell. This guy has a bucket full of bayonets, multiple cases of medals, a blanket covered with Helmets, and buckets of magazines (where I got my Empire of World War issue). Also, one thing I forgot to post, I have a dummy Hand Grenade, used in field training:
