Managed to tack a visit to La Gleize onto my 2016 vacation, so here are a selection of photos. Every trip to the Ardennes I’ve done since 1987 has been via the Marche/Hotton/Trois Ponts road, which always ( always ! ) means a stop at the Grandmesnil Panther.

Up early next morning and off to the Fair. A nice little convoy of Kubelwagen & Schwimmwagen had made the trip…

On the stalls, the usual amount of ‘rust’, but the near-absence of deactivated munitions was very noticeable ( hardly so much as a deactivated rifle cartridge….) -

Someone had obviously dug up a hoard of relic Luftwaffe helmets, some with remnants of liners. Bit too rusty for me, but about 2/3 of them had gone by lunchtime….

And it’s somehow fun to rummage the stalls with a genuine Bulge backdrop as you walk downhill from the village -

It’s always amusing to see pricing trends. In 2015, a hoard of ‘Panzer’-type blowlamps had obviously been found. There were dozens available for E20-E30. This year, I only saw three - and one was on offer for E160 ! :rolleyes:

So, by mid-morning I’d bought an S-mine parts box, and a very cheap original two-volume set of ‘Tiger im Kampf’. What I’d hoped to find was a fairly good, well-marked and labelled Pak/KwK43 box and I saw four. I was glad to ‘keep my powder dry’ because right at the bottom of the hill a collector from Lille was selling some choice kisten. The box I chose, without handles but with a very fine label and an affordable price, fit the bill quite well …

The fun wasn’t quite over…..heading for France via Luxemburg two days later, I spotted this and almost stood the car on its’ nose……

It’s at a tiny place called Heinerscheid. I dimly remembered seeing it in Battle of the Bulge Then & Now years ago, but it’s in better condition now. A genuine relic of the Bulge, it would have gone rather nicely with my box. But no, it didn’t seem to be for sale !

Click to enlarge the picture