I have been doing considerable research into the matter of the purported, \u201cAdolf Hitler Ring\u201d that was allegedly recently sold by the Alexander Auctions people for $66.000 .<\/p>\n
On April 4, 1982, the British \u201cTelegraph Sunday Magazine\u201d (and later in the American \u201cPenthouse\u201d magazine) an article appeared on what was then called \u201cThe Treasure Trove of the Decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
This dealt with the purported discovery by a certain \u201cSergeant Joseph\u201d in the \u201cwater-logged\u201d basement of the \u201cF\u00fchrerbau\u201d on the Koenigsplatz in Munich of a glittering horde of Nazi relics.<\/p>\n
This find consisted of, among other things, \u201cA gold-plated, richly engraved 7.65 mm pistol presented to Hitler by one \u2018Max Kehl\u2019\u201d and now insured for $375,000, \u201cHitler\u2019s \u2018swastika ring\u2019 made for him by the \u201cleading German jeweler K. Berthlold in platinum\u201d: a \u201ctiny portrait of Hitler\u2019s mother\u201d as well as one of his dog, \u2018Blondi,\u201d and \u201cnumerous\u201d pieces of table silver made for Hitler by the firm of Krupp in Berndorf, and Hitler\u2019s \u201cpersonal gold wristwatch\u201d with a day-date device. This last treasure, alas, was lost when \u201cSergeant Joseph\u201d was washing his hands in a public lavatory in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
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This entire glittering collection was sold to a Mr. Ray Bily from Nevada.<\/p>\n
In 2013, another article appeared on September 5 in \u2018Mail Online\u2019 another British publication, on the subject of the ring itself. In this article, the ring was found \u2018in Hitler\u2019s Bavarian retreat\u2019 but there is no mention of \u201cSergeant Joseph,\u201d but now the ring is stated to be of gold-plated silver, not platinum.<\/p>\n
Since provenance is most important in establishing the authenticity of a purportedly rare items, the first step here was to ascertain the background of \u201cSergeant Joseph.\u201d Most dealers who concoct stories about \u201cVeteran finds\u201d make up names to suit themselves but they do not realize that the U.S. Army has all of its personnel records on file in Missouri.<\/p>\n
In checking these, we discovered four \u201cSergeant Joseph\u201d names. One had been in the Pacific Theater throughout the war and therefore was not the discoverer in Munich. The other had been an Army supply sergeant in Italy from 1944 until 1945 and was not in the running. The third was killed in August of 1944 at St Lo, France and the fourth was stationed in the United States in San Antonio as a cook at the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.<\/p>\n
Could the British author have made an error? Could the finder of Precious Treasures in Munich have actually have been a Sergeant Joseph Grinder?<\/p>\n
After all Joe the Grinder was quite well known in various circles at the time.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that when Mr. Craig Gottlieb recently offered an object he called \u201cThe Adolf Hitler Desk Set\u201d for auction in the same auction house, Alexander Auctions, that presented the \u201cHitler Ring,\u201d it was stated to have been found by an American soldier in the water-logged cellar of the same F\u00fchrerbau in Munich! The first Gottlieb report was that the soldier had been quartered in \u201cEva Brauns\u2019s Munich house\u201d and, discovering a secret tunnel in the cellar, crawled through it for three miles, to Hitler\u2019s earlier office in downtown Munich where he found the desk set lying on the old desk, still intact. This story was later changed to the soldier having been quartered in the \u201cBraun Haus\u201d that is only a few yards from the F\u00fchrerbau but the secret tunnel was still in play. The only thing wrong with this scenario is that the Braun Haus had been bombed out during an earlier air raid and that quartering soldiers in it was impossible.<\/p>\n
The ring had indeed been manufactured in Germany but was advertised in a period catalog as a \u201cF\u00fchrer\u201d ring and at least eight were sold. A close-up picture of the Alexander Auction piece shows very bad craftsmanship, so bad that no jeweler or Party member would have dared to give it to Hitler. The tiny picture of his mother from the earlier article was copied from a Hoffman picture appearing in one of his illustrated Hitler books and the dog picture, never shown anywhere, showed a Belgian shephed dog that was black, not tan and black.<\/p>\n
There are many collectors like Mr. Bily. They have a good deal of money, no knowledge or taste and are the delight of the dealers in such recently-manufactured glitterati as:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been doing considerable research into the matter of the purported, \u201cAdolf Hitler Ring\u201d that was allegedly recently sold by the Alexander Auctions people for $66.000 . On April 4, 1982, the British \u201cTelegraph Sunday Magazine\u201d (and later in the American \u201cPenthouse\u201d magazine) an article appeared on what was then called \u201cThe Treasure Trove of the Decade.\u201d This dealt with the purported discovery by a certain \u201cSergeant Joseph\u201d in the \u201cwater-logged\u201d basement of the \u201cF\u00fchrerbau\u201d on the Koenigsplatz in…<\/p>\n