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I recently purchased these 2 Helmets and originally thought they were the same but the more I look at them the more differences I see. Could someone with more experience give me their opinion?

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I recently purchased this set and believe at least the Black and Silver are good but the gold is a little concerning because it doesn’t have a Makers Mark and I haven’t been able to find another one with the exact same clasp. Does anyone have any insight into this?

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Hi I recently purchased this dagger and was in need of the experts opinions here. I believe it may be a copy as the tang is square. Can someone please help me determine authenticity? Thanks in advance for any help.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year..BILL

Just in is this Christmas present to myself: The 1957er Abzeichen für Blockadebrecher [Badge for Blockade Runners].

Instituted on 1 April 1941, the Abzeichen für Blockadebrecher was created "in recognition of the determined conduct of the crews of sea-going ships who found themselves in neutral foreign countries, overseas and on the oceans upon the outbreak of war and who returned to the homeland after breaking the enemy blockade".

The badge could be awarded to the crews of military blockade runners as well those of civilian commercial vessels. The Reichskommissar für die Seeschiffahrt [National Commissioner for Maritime Navigation] was in charge of awards to the crews of civilian ships, while the Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine [Supreme Commander of the Navy], acting in consent with the Reichskommissar, was in charge of awards to crews of ships under military control.

Criteria for the award were a successful breakthrough of the sea blockade, scuttling of the ship to avoid its impending capture by enemy forces and certain cases involving particular initiative which led to a ship and its cargo either being preserved or destroyed in the interest of the people and the economy. Survivors of ships sunk by the enemy were also eligible for the badge as were wounded men under special circumstances.

Originally designed by the artist Otto Placzek of Berlin, the badge depicts a civilian ship with the national eagle at its bow, plowing through the waves and breaking a chain that forms the border of the badge and symbolizes the blockade. The 57er version eliminates the Swastika originally held in eagle’s clutches.

Here it is now:

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I wanted to add this to my Rinji Seishiki Gunto thread, but I could not do so because that thread was already closed.

Anyway, in post 3 of that thread I wrote about the public drive to collect old family swords for conversion into Gunto to make up for the shortages of Gunto production. I thought it might be of interest to sword people to know what the threshold conditions were for entering old swords in this program, as they also provide clues to other questions such as the short models supposedly for flyers or old family swords as guntos.

Attached below is the public flyer distributed by the military sword appraisal committee and the paragraph boxed in red defines the conditions under which they bought swords from the public. This was part of the home front support activity that later got acknowledged by the China Incident Commemorative Medal.

I will provide a translation of the boxed section—-

(Qualifications necessary in the sword submitted for consideration)
"Swords suitable as Gunto, coming with a minimum blade length of 54.5 centimeters (21.5") will be bought up at fair prices. However, please understand that those valued at more than 500 Yen and naturally those that reveal themselves to be of national treasure class or of particular historical value in the preliminary acceptance Shinsa screening will need to be excluded, and we ask that they be kept in your custody to be preserved on behalf of the nation. Please be sure to clearly tag with name and address the blades you submit"


Thus swords for this program could be roughly 20% shorter than standard, as that was still preferable to not having any sword at all. At the same time, they had the sense not to send precious treasures out into the battlefield by only accepting blades up to 6 times the value of a rinji seishiki blade and rejecting anything more expensive.

The flyer is titled "About serving your nation with Guntos" and would have been delivered in the newspapers or passed around as a neighborhood round robin.

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Hi,

I received this Ärmelband Kreta recently and I’d like to have some opinions about it.

Thanks in advance.

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