Mint M4/55 Hitler Youth buckle with label

Ray Cowdery! His booklet is of no value at all.
A friend of mine from Canada did send it in June 1983 (nearly thirty years
ago). In the front of the book he wrote:
"I hope you can spread the word before its to late".

The booklet was filled with fakes, fantasy and whatsoever (for example
NS-1, NS-6, NS-7, SP-6, WH-3). The showing of the inspecting the NSFK
buckle, the so-called artwork, the die for this buckle and other things was
a joke first class! I always thought Cowdery did not even know what a
buckle in fact was! This is just my personal opinion!!
 
Wim, what a great post, you have basically summed up what i was trying to say all along, that opinions will differ no matter how "high" you go up the rankings.
Its not just the collectors that have "opinions" but right at the very top too. Ray has been collecting TR items, researching them, been a museum curator (z.B) and written many books about TR and US relics, since the mid 1950s, Yet here you say .."a joke first class" So you see, this is the reason why, and i dont care WHO or what name, person, reputation etc says something, or posts/publishes something, i will never just roll over and "go with the flow" because "a certain person" says either Yes or No. Of course listen to all opinions but at the end of the day, i trust my inner-feeling. Otherwise all i have to "help" me decide, are the "opinions" of old guys who the community "thinks" know what they are talking about just because they printed some books, or have been around 2,3,4 decades before other collectors.

I am sure that Ray has his following of collectors who believe anything and everything he says, the same as i know that you as well have a following of people who believe anything and everything you say..
The reason maybe, with a vast portion of collectors never being able to read German, they have relied on Old "names" for advice, and still do. A recent example is the HJ-Foreigners badge we were talking about last week, Helmut Weitze says one thing about HA as a maker, and Phillip Militaria says the exact opposite (two big names today).

Or, maybe it is as you wrote in the latest MA Vol.23 on page 12...
todays collectors and dealers rely almost solely on Forums for their answers.
.... which i guess, after reading this may just lead a new collector to stop and think that maybe it is better to read actual articles and books instead of just lapping up everything they see on a forum.... they would be spurred on to go down that path after reading ...
Once again it is stressed that authors of magazine articles and books are usually the real experts as they have put in their years of research and have published what they have found.
But... then they will also read that these articles and books are themselves, not 100% correct either. Still today bad information is published in books, articles that are not 100% correct are published by collector magazines, and as you have just pointed out, everyone will have a different opinion about a Dealer; Author; Article-writer and forum poster.

Wim, seriously now, If this was not the case, then it would be have spread around in the collecting world long ago that only XXX-Magazine is the reliable one, or only XXX-Author is to be believed and everyone would be subscribing to that magazine/author. But its not, because the hobby is about a battle-of-reputations, and not about individual research.

If this hobby of ours was not about Big amounts of money, war-relics as an investment fund and knowledge used as a means to manipulate, show off and earn reputation, then we would all be having a laugh, when a fake is discovered we could all laugh and move on, but that is far from the reality, it is Primarily about Cash, and a bad investment means loosing money, which no human being likes to do. So the Truth, Fakten und Wahrheit, play a minor role in our hobby today, as does any published information, because if a certain person does not agree with info published, (book or forum) there will be a way to get around that and in most cases the response will be to try and make that Author or poster look like a fool, discredit them and open the doors for "new possibilities"

When it comes to a subject such as Hortfunde, i dont disbelieve them because of what Ray Cowdery wrote, or because of what was written in the 60s about them, or because of my personal experience loosing money on them before, or my personal experience of physically being in a Fakers workshop and watching them make items that later sell on their own Auction-platforms as Original, Hortfund aus Pforzheim.....its because of common logic and History coupled with my understanding that this is, and has always been a Multi-billion dollar business filled up with money-grabbing people who have always, and will always, find a new story to help sell their junk. (even publishing absolute rubbish to help them later on) But because this is all about money and reputations, it will never be possible to have a decent debate about these items, one person, or more, in the debate will always have one or two of these items, and have been told by "a big old name" that they are the real deal, so therefore these "collectors" already come to the discussion with a solid opinion that what they have is REAL, and no amount of debate will change that. For lots of items we have 10 opinions, 20 different authors telling a different story, 50 published articles, 10,000 forum posts all varying in content, and a Market that is Hungry for more, most collectors who have invested money and are not prepared to accept anything else than a thumbs up...and very little space for fakten und wahrheit▬because the facts, and the Truth...they are both bad for business.

If a person can explain why his Item(s) are real by using nothing more than period facts, and comparisons between known fakes as well as many originals, and explain the differences and reasons for the differences, that would be the start of correct in-depth research, but as everyone will agree, many collectors dont know, or care, how their items were made, or what could be, should be, and cant be, its MONEY, and as long as some old name, or book shows a Thumbs-up, thats enough.

And just for the record, i personally dont subscribe to the D-MILITARIA magazine simply because the verlag will not ship it to Switzerland. I used to get it through a freind, but stopped a few years ago after i mailed the verlag 5 times and asked them why they could not ship it to me, just a katzensprung over the boarder and i never recieved any reply, so there you go, i treat people how they treat me, and if you cant be bothered to keep a customer by simply answering a eMail....well..... I do subscribe to other collector mags, but read them all with a bag of salt by my side.
 
MINT, from Austria..

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A very interesting thread and I would like to perhaps comment on the controversial M4/55 HJ by Julius Kremp, Lüdenscheid. I have "104912F" which I bought in Germany around 10 years ago. Never before have I heard of the "Austrian connection" or the "lost and now found" hoard story. This buckle was among a small group and where I was able to closely examine it (them) in hand, prior to confirming yes or no to the sale. We are now in the era of superb quality lost wax casting as borne out by the current generation fake SS, SA-Wehrmannschaft and NSDStB, to name but three. The three buckles when period produced were die stamped (not cast) as was again, the controversial M4/55 HJ. There are current rumours of fake die stamped buckles, although I have not as yet seen one and certainly there were no die stamped fakes 10 years ago. If you closely examine and in hand the controversial M4/55 HJ, there is no doubt whatsoever that it was produced by a die stamp method. The colour, size and finish shout out die stamping in "Leichtmetall", coupled with what I consider to be a generically period pin, pin shroud and claw arrangement and where the latter even shows the correct vertical striations from drawing.

In my opinion, a quite original and period buckle.

Regards,

David
 
Thanks for piping in here David. It was getting a little confusing for me. Your opinion on belt buckles
is always appreciated.
 
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