Advice to New (and old) Collectors

A lot of collector sites have advice for the new collector. The tried and true wisdom that we have all heard before like, buy the book first and always buy the highest quality you can afford. To that sage advice I would add two things; first after you buy the book be sure to read the introductions which usually contain a gold mine of basic information.

Second and you will not read this anywhere else that I know of: Don't run with the herd.

Find a field or specialty that isn't being collected by everyone else. If possible find something that interests you but isn't popular and blaze your own trail. Within a few years you will develop a reputation and people will be coming to you as the expert. Instead of paying the inflated prices of the highly collected areas you will be on the ground level finding all sorts of interesting bargains. For example I started collecting US state and local issue war service medals and German states medals in the mid 1960's. Everyone else that I knew was into nazi stuff. I was asked once 'why do you keep beating yourself to death with that junk?" Well they are still in the nazi stuff and I hope they are happy with it. When I look at all that I have collected I know I have made the right choice. The current prices in my collecting specialties have validated my choice financially. My personal satisfaction is immeasurable and all at a fraction of the cost that the nazi stuff would have cost me over the years. Follow your heart over the long haul and you will never regret it. Fred

I have been collecting medals and badges of the German veterans groups in America for many years. The field is huge, uncataloged and the German terminology and use of abbreviations can be a challenge even to someone who can read the German. Here is an example using the scan below. The cross on the left is black enamel on silver. The inscription “DEUTSCHER KRIEGER VEREIN S.F.” translates as German Soldiers (war veterans) Association San Francisco. The key word here is Verein which usually but not always implies a local group.

The next item is a similar cross inscribed “DEUTSHER KRIEGER BUND N.A.” which translates as German Soldiers League (or union) of North America. The word Bund used here usually but not always indicates an organization on a state or national level. This cross is suspended from a brooch of crossed cannons and two shields, one American and the other German. The front cannon is inscribed with the initials “D.M.V.E.” which probably means “DEUTSCHER MILITAER VEREIN E….” German Military (including peace time veterans) Association “ and the letter “E” which is an abbreviation for a place name that begins with that letter. In this case probably another place in California since the enameling on both crosses looks like the work of one manufacturer.

Dueppel Cross

I love to take my wife shopping for two reasons. First of all she is a good shopper and demands quality at a good price. If the quality isn’t there or the price is too high she won’t buy at all. Second when I drop her off at the shopping mall I am free to hit the local antique malls. Last week just after New Years, which is a good time to see what new dealers have moved into your local mall, had one of those days for me. I got lucky after I dropped off the wife and found a Duepple Cross at a bargain price which was very unusual considering that the dealer’s other items were all very high or over priced in my opinion. The Prussian Duppel (the letter u has an umlaut on the medal) Cross was given to the troops who participated in the storming and capture of the Danish fortress of Dueppel in 1864. The Prussians numbered 16,000 which is a small number as far as campaign medals go.

This type of military medal is called a campaign medal which to my way of thinking is the best kind of military medal to collect. Campaign medals are historic mile stones and were given to every soldier that took part in the war, battle or campaign for which it was issued. For the most part the issuing of campaign medals to all, even the lowest ranking soldiers started during the Napoleonic wars.

 Happy New Year to you all. As we know New Years is when many people make resolutions and plans for the coming year. Most collectors are married to non-collecting spouses and these spouses usually worry about how the money is being spent when they don‘t do the spending. That means the first thing a collector must do is to teach the spouse that buying collectibles is an investment just like stocks and bonds only a lot more fun to own, and that collectibles unlike adult toys i.e. snowmobiles, fishing boats, sporting equipment and jewelry, will probably be sold at a profit someday instead of depreciating down to almost nothing. Once this has been accomplished the collector will find that he is probably collecting on a budget. The thing to remember here is that a budget just divides up an income into smaller dedicated funds on a continual basis. Therefore from every pay check, even if you don’t buy any collectibles during that pay period, set aside the money budgeted for collectibles and just let the collectibles fund grow until you find something you need to buy. When you sell an unwanted item the money from that sale should also go into the same collectibles fund. Then when something good comes along you can buy it outright and feel just like a hunter with a license and plenty of ammunition.

In the field of military medal collecting sooner than later everyone learns about relic medals. Simply defined a relic medal is one that is made by recycling old metal usually in the form of captured cannons. This means that only winners issue relic medals though there is probably an exception to this rule out there somewhere that I don’t know about. When I started looking around as a young collector I was quickly amazed at how many well known medals are relic medals. The two best known examples are the British Victoria Cross and the United States Medal of Honor. So few of these are awarded that I don’t think they will ever run out of the metal needed to make them with. Others are much more common but just think of how many medals could be made out of just one old bronze cannon. The most common relic medal and one of my favorites would be the German Franco-Prussian War service medal for combatants. Each one of these have the edge inscription “AUS EROBERTEM GESCHUTZ” (with the two little dots above the letter u in the last word) which translates, from captured cannon.. While this was technically a Prussian medal it was awarded nation wide to every combatant regardless of which German state they came from.

Here we have a gold award medal inscribed “U. W. REGIMENTAL PRIZE DRILL” on an otherwise plain cross and wreath shaped medal. The brooch is inscribed with the name “Lee H. Huntley” which presented me with a research challenge. As it turned out Mr. Huntley was University of Wisconsin Class of 1908 and won this military ROTC (then known as the Corps of Cadets) award for drill in 1906. He graduated with a civil engineering degree and never spent day in the military or earned any other military medals. So here we have a single military medal which is also one man’s complete group.

Illustrated below is a US Navy Good Conduct Medal that I found in an estate. It is in mint condition and looks too good to be true. This medal is the rare first round medal version issued from 1880-1884. The size of this medal is an unusual 40mm in diameter which is an important red flag. Every other Navy Good Conduct I have seen is 32-33mm in size. My medal books don’t mention size when describing these medals so I posted this item on the US Militaria Forum site which is a site everyone reading this blog should visit. http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ . There I was quickly informed that the 40mm version is a “Collectors Copy” which got me to think that now would be a good time to discuss terminology. The terms Fake, Jewelers copy and collector copy as I see it should be defined as follows. Fake; an exact copy made to fool collectors with fraudulent intent. Collectors Copy; an inexact copy made for collectors to use as a space filler but with enough differences that knowledgable persons can tell the difference, in this case the wrong size. Jewelers Copy; these are usually exact copies made by authorized manufacturers and only sold as wearing or replacement copies which originally could only be sold to people who had earned the right to wear them. This is very common in the German issues especially in the higher orders and decorations. Jewelers copies are usually easy to spot due to lower material and workmanship quality.

The Greedy State of Wisconsin and other states have been collecting sales tax on postage for several years now. I can understand that when paying for the shipment of a purchased item by mail the handling fees like any other service would be taxable but not the actual postage charged by the United States Post Office which is still part of the Federal Government. No state has the legal right to tax the Federal Government. If you think I am wrong in this view, ask yourself why is it that when you go to the post office and ship a parcel or buy some stamps the post office does not charge sales tax on these transactions. Granted it is easier to charge the sales tax on the entire amount rather than to separate the taxable handling charges from the actual postage but it still is wrong to do so. Since the amount of money per transaction or per individual is too small to justify a privately funded law suit no one has yet challenged this illegal taxation. Maybe it is time to consider a class action suit? Any lawyers out there? If so please feel free to chime in.