Once in a while if a collector spends time looking through old military pictures some thing like the one below will surface. Looking somewhat like a cross between a hussar and a bellboy with lots of decoration but few if any medals or badges are the German student groups uniforms. This one is only wearing a fob-like decoration similar the one next to the photo. These student groups (lots of them) which flourished from the early 1800s-1930s were much like fraternities but more militaristic and patriotic in nature. They developed a blood-brotherhood through their ritualistic dueling between the various groups. These duels were often pre-arranged so that every member was assured of getting the required scar badge of honor.  The duels were often held in secret with an attending physician and consisted of a series of individual duels between opponents in heavy protective clothing facing off and hacking away at each other without any sword fighting skills as if their feet were rooted to the ground. The only object was to stand your ground until you drew blood or became too bloody to continue. I guess since I can only read about this ritual I will never be able to understand it enough to respect it.

On Feb. 23, 2008 I opened a store front on the ePier internet auction site and used my credit card number to do so as required by ePier. Within 24 hours on Feb. 24, 2008 fraudulent charges started appearing on my credit card account! I cancelled the site 3 days later but ePier still had the gall to post the charge! Need I say more?

Veterans ladder badges come in various configurations not all of which look like ladders. All are private purchase pieces engraved with the veteran’s name , unit and usually a date or dates. The first of these appeared during the Civil War and were sold to soldiers who wanted some sort of unit insignia. Civil War era badges don’t carry the dates 1861-65. Badges with those dates are post war issues and strictly veterans items. Similar badges like these continued to be made and worn until the First World War and are mostly linked to the various state national guard units. What makes these so collectible is that they are so researchable. Illustrated below for example is one from Wisconsin. The top bar has “CO. D” which means the original owner was a member of Company D. The second bar from the top, “1st REG. “ tells us that Company D was part of the First Regiment. The third bar “DARLINGTON” tells us the name of Company D’s home town. On the pendent we find “WIS.” above two crossed rifles and “N.G” which tells us Co. D and the 1st regt. are part of the Wisconsin National Guard. The crossed rifles indicate that this was an infantry unit. The 1897 date is the year this badge was purchased probably by a young guardsman attending his first training camp. The guardsman’s name “W. A. Campbell” is at the bottom. Checking my old Wisconsin Blue Books I found that this unit was first organized July 8, 1884 as the Darlington Rifles and was designated Company K at the time. Campbell was not an officer so tracking down his history will be much harder if I ever get that ambitious.

Collectors are the mother-lode of specialized information and most collectors are eager to share the information which they have spent a life time accumulating for the good of the hobby, and they do it for free! Just look at the history of Krause Publications which has spent the last 50 years collecting all this free information from collectors of coins, cars etc. and then repackaging all that information into a concentrated, convenient and portable format which they then sell back into the collecting market. Collectors of military medals are the same. All one needs do is to look at the many forums on the internet. Even on eBay where it is least expected this generous collector sharing occurs. Last week for example I listed the US Maritime Commission Merit Award illustrated below on eBay as silver in one of my not so brilliant moments. Within a few days a fellow eBayer specializing in these awards emailed me a correction. This good Samaritan collector also has a web-site which is so fantastic that I just have to share it with you all http://www.geocities.com/ssgtedusmc/ this site is a keeper! If this is what just one dedicated collector can do the future sure looks promising.