Last month, a starting collector asked me if I had any collector’s tips I could share. I had never considered this before, but I realized there are so many do’s and don’ts, so I figured I’d write an article on it and share it with everyone.

With the holidays in sight, all of you long-time collectors are surely evaluating your purchases done in 2011 and making want lists and resolutions for 2012. Maybe this year you bought things you weren’t exactly looking for, and then later you didn’t have the money when something interesting came up? And for next year, you want to do better?

All these tips are assuming we are 100% rational people, which of course we are not, otherwise we wouldn’t be collectors in the first place.

Go to list of collector’s dos and dont’s

I wasn’t sure this series would ever continue beyond part 2, but part 3 just came out and it is beautiful. This volume is still called ‘Airborne’ but actually covers the involvement of the 29th Infantry Division in D-Day. I am told that it’s sequel, part 4 is due out in February 2012. It is refreshing to see that some comic book authors like Jarbinet still invest a lot in research. Many others will also toil a year on creating one album, but often riddled with uniforms and weapons errors. See related post on part 1 and 2.

Over the years, I have bought several reproduction crickets. You know, the toy clickers that were used by the 101st Airborne in Normandy. Not by the 82nd, who only used the challenge Flash – Thunder. This led to dangerous confusion when paratroopers of both divisions missed their drop zones and got mixed up. A rare and original ground-dug and rusty cricket can set you back a 1000 euros. If anyone can be sure at all that it’s authentic. So I am perfectly happy with these repress. The silver one is very special in that it is an exact copy of the Acme-brand crickets described in America’s Finest. I did the aging myself, but Fallschimrjaeger.biz sells them pre-aged too. The green-oxydized one is currently available on eBay from a seller in France for about 15-20 euros. The plain brass one, I don’t remember where it’s from. Probably from a souvenir shop in Normandy. Obviously you don’t want to buy one marked U.S. or D-Day etc. Click-clack here to see more detail pics

This Saturday, a memorial service was held at the cemetary of Waasmunster, Belgium on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the shooting down of the a RAF Handley-Page Hampden of the 44th RAF Squadron. A memorial sign was unveiled at the gates and wreaths were laid at the graves of the four British and Canadian crew. Present were delegates from resistance and veterans organizations, the ministry of defence, the mayors of Waasmunster and Hamme and the ambassadors of Great Britain and Canada. A fly-past was done by two vintage Piper Cubs from the Belgian Airforce.
View photo album

‘Pathfinders – In the Company of Strangers’ is a movie from earlier this year and now released on DVD. I hadn’t heard about it, but when I saw it on display at the bookstore, it looked interesting. Pathfinders and their equipment are the most intriguing aspect of airborne history, so I was hoping to catch a glimpse of custom pathfinder uniforms, bags, Eureka beacons, Aldis lamps etc. And sadly, a glimpse is all I got. But far worse was the movie script and the poor acting. It’s really dull and not worth your money. If you can get it cheap next year or so, I still recommend you buy the DVD, because it includes the 55-minute documentary ‘Geronimo’ about US paratroopers in Normandy, which is far better than the movie and does include interesting period footage and interviews with veteran paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne. Kind of like the interviews that the Band of Brothers episodes start with.

Last weekend, this remarkable large type luminous disk was sold on eBay for $400. This is the bridge marker type which is mentioned in my luminous disks article, but I didn’t have any good pictures of it until now. The seller was so kind to let me use his photos. He sold just one disk with the felt bag, but the metal box is very interesting because it solves the TYPE I vs. TYPE III mystery. Apparently, this type of disks belongs in the TYPE III-marked box, which has diagonal dividers inside (allowing for larger, but fewer disks). The TYPE 1 box has the smaller square dividers for the disks that were worn on helmets (mostly). The disk has a clip like the smaller disks for attaching it to the helmet net, the uniform or webbing, and two prongs with holes for nails. It is marked “USRC UNDARK 22m-TTR58 4-45 POSION INSIDE”. This was made April 1945.

This here is a nice recent addition to my collection. A box for 15 jump wings from the American Emblem Co, at Utica N.Y. These wings were marked A.E. Co. at the back. I also have one of those wings, but not from this box. The jump wings in this box came in their own jewel cases, but I didn’t buy those.

I was familiar with the tins of black paratrooper boot polish, also by Corcoran, but I had never seen one of these before until I ran into one this month. It is a small bottle with brown liquid boot dye and has the Corcoran brand. Corcoran is the best known manufacturer of the famous lace-up paratrooper boots. The label is not dated, so I am not sure if these are war-time, or early post war. But a neat paratrooper item anyway!

This summer I spent a week at the Belgian Ardennes and visited some of the museums and monuments related to the Battle of the Bulge. I tried visiting museums I hadn’t been to before. Over the years I got a lot of brochures, so I had a list to go by. In addition to that, I had re-read part of Four Stars of Valour about the 505th PIR. This unit of the 82nd Airborne fought right where we were staying. I visited the villages mentioned there and got a much better appreciation of the battlefield. Climbing the steep hills at Trois Ponts made it clear what a formidable battle must have taken place there, especially in the winter.

As usual, some museums turned out to no longer exist (Bataille de la Salm and Remember You 45), even though brochures of them can still be found and road signs have not all been removed. Always a good laugh for my wife when I drag the family to such unexisting places.

The museums at La-Roche-en-Ardenne and Baugnez were really worthwhile. A pleasant surprise were also the underground Headquarters of the 101st Airborne of General McAuliffe at Bastogne which were just last year saved from demolition (thank you Crembo).

Click here to view the photo album

I recently bought these comic books at Amazon. WW2 comic books have seen a real boom the past 2 years. Most of them are WW2 aviation related, but some are specifically airborne related, so they deserve to be mentioned on this blog for paratrooper enthusiasts.

For starters, all three are in French. I would have gotten them in Dutch, but La Nuit des Paras and Normandie came out at a very small publisher in France and aren’t even sold in Belgium, let alone translated. They deserve to be though, as both are worthwhile illustrated accounts of the British and American airborne part in the Normandy invasion. Nuts! is in fact a reworked reprint of a book from 1991. The old edition also exists in Dutch. It is about the Battle of the Bulge as you might guess from the title.

This is not the first post about new paratrooper related comic books, so I added a new section for it within the book reviews section.