Newsletter 253 April 20, 2017

Newsletter 253 April 20, 2017

U-boat Badge with Diamonds Presentation Letter   The U-boat War Badge with Diamonds was instituted by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and was a gold-plated silver version of the U-boat Badge in which the swastika was inlaid with diamonds. The badge was a special issue award given to U-boat commanders who had received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. This version was made of gold plate over silver. It was manufactured only by the firm Schwerin u….

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Newsletter 252 April 9, 2017

Newsletter 252 April 9, 2017

Here we have a collection of sample illustrations we are preparing for use in our new work on the enormous number of fakes being made for sale to a trusting collecting world. This will run to over 100 pages, contains many clear and revealing pictures, shows pages from the catalogs of makers of fakes and the sites of those who sell them as genuine. This compendium of frauds is not intended for sale; it will be free. The so-called “Goering…

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Newsletter 251 April 8, 2017

Newsletter 251 April 8, 2017

The Rommel Honor Dagger   Many collectors seem to be drawn to technical works that are published solely to sell fakes. These gaudy books contain endless “variant” pieces, “prototypes,” “late-war production” items and many other entertaining holy relics that happen to be in the possession of either the author or one of his partners in crime. It might prove instructive to illustrate a fictional fraud, based entirely on factual procedures. Let us consider the “Rommel Honor Dagger.” This would be…

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Newsletter 250 April 2, 2017

Newsletter 250 April 2, 2017

Wonders will Never Cease! Here we have an incredibly rare Third Reich item being offered for the first time to the collecting world. It is to be offered by a Florida auction house, Affiliated Auctions of Talahassee, and is the property of Germania International of Lakemont, Georgia. This is a wall lamp from Hitler’s personal bedroom in the old Chancellery and was acquired by Major Benjamin Dover of U.S. Army Intelligence in 1945 from a Russian Colonel he met at…

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Newsletter 249 March 29, 2017

Newsletter 249 March 29, 2017

This is a communication from a reader. I have redacted his name to protect him from vengeful and deluded collectors and exposed dealers” “Dear Mr. Royster: I read your site regularly and have learned a great deal from it. It has kept me from buying some of the many fakes that the dealers, and auction houses, are offering to collectors. I have a question for you and would appreciate your answer. Someone has offered me a German Cross in Gold…

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Newsletter 248 March 26, 2017

Newsletter 248 March 26, 2017

The Hitler Headquarters Map Hitler’s military headquarters in East Prussia was called the “Wolfsschanze” or Wolf’s Lair. It was built in the Görlitz State Forest near Rastenburg and covered many acres. Heavily camouflaged, the buildings were reinforced with concrete and the entire complex was heavily guarded by Army, Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS units.  Hitler conducted his east front campaigns from this location and it was here, on July 20, 1944, Colonel Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the conference room with the…

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Newsletter 247 March 16, 2017

Newsletter 247 March 16, 2017

Mr. Royster: I am a collector and I learned about a very rare uniform so I wrote to the dealer whom I was told had it. Here is a copy of my message to him, his reply and then mine. I thought you might find all of this interesting. I must confess I found it very funny. Simon  From: Simon Carrington [mailto:xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:46 PM To: Teutonia Subject: RE: Fallschirmjager Uniform Gentlemen: Helmuth Weitze told me…

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Newsletter 246 March 11, 2017

Newsletter 246 March 11, 2017

During the course of the war, the Wehrmacht and SS rarely issued stamped aluminum shoulder board unit insignia. Replacing these for enlisted personnel were machine-embroidered devices produced on a strip of cloth. For the Heer the cloth was field grey or dark green in color and for the SS in black. The piece shown here is for the SS-Panzer-Grenadier Rgt.’Der Führer.’ This was formed on March 17, 1938 in Vienna and was later attached to SS-Division’ Das Reich’. The shoulder…

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Newsletter 245 March 3, 2017

Newsletter 245 March 3, 2017

The Crooked Cross: The Neo-Nazi Renaissance by Harry von Johnston, PhD   In the main, fraud, counterfeiting and deceit are certainly immoral  and very often felonious but in some instances, the essential ludicrous nature of some frauds manages to overcome the gravity. Such is the case of the enormous industry devoted to the creation, manufacture and sale of faked items of German militaria and elevated personality items from the Third Reich period, purporting to belong to such people as Hitler…

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Newsletter 244 March 1, 2017

Newsletter 244 March 1, 2017

From: Chris Lihou <clihou@yahoo.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2017 10:28 PM To: Arthur Royster Subject: The “Hitler Telephone” Dear Arthur, This pathetic affair is a case of wishful thinking on the part of those who have paid huge money for this “artifact” and desperately want to believe this phone is genuine. If we look at the first photo below, we can see that the words “MODELL SIEMENS” have been impressed into the plastic with a hot metal die, probably part…

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