Bill Shea's WWII Memorabilia Blog RSS

The Model 1935 Double Decal SS helmet, also known as the Stahlhelm, is one of the most desirable of all the production helmets of the Third Reich. Many books have attempted to cover this topic, but no one book has all the answers and no single book is 100% accurate. However, good, solid reference material combined with technical assistance available through some forums, websites, collectors and dealers is helpful. It wasn’t until about 20 years ago that there was ever a reference that dealt exclusively with SS helmets. That book was entitled “SS HELMETS, A Collector’s Guide” by Kelly Hicks....

Units of the US Army including the 45th Division(The Thunderbirds) arrived at the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29th, 1945. The camp is located about 28 kilometers from Munich. These battle hardened units had little idea when they walked through the gates that they were entering a full-fledged concentration camp complete with gas chambers, crematoriums and factories where inmates were worked to death in horrible circumstances. The resulting actions were chaotic and swift retribution was meted out to those camp guards and administrators who were still there. The US authorities did their very best to stabilize the situation bringing in food...

I'm asked this question all the time regarding WWII items in general. However, more specifically as it relates to items from the SS (SchutzStaffel). Most of the reasons are quite obvious and have a lot to do with supply and demand. However, the Allgemeine (general) and the Waffen (armed) SS was a massive organization so it stands to reason (before thinking it through) that there would be a large amount of items associated with these groups still around. After all, huge caches of SS insignia and field caps were found at the Dachau Concentration camp when it was liberated in late April...

How are you maintaining your WWII visor caps? With WWII visor caps, here you have a combination of metal or bullion (with the insignia). You have wool or some form thereof with the body and you have leather or some derivative with the visor. First of all, how do you display a visor cap? I’ve been asked this question 100s of times. You may decide on one of those Styrofoam heads which is fine if you have the space on the shelf. These are readily available on-line in plain or with detailed faces and in white or flesh tone. If...

Where to start collecting WWII Memorabilia and Militaria Starting a WWII military memorabilia collection may seem like a daunting effort. Where do you begin? Who can you trust? What's even out there to begin with? These are all questions every collector has asked himself at one point. Here are a couple tips that every new WWII collector should know before starting a collection:  The actual collecting of original WWII military items is not that hard to do. Once you have located one or two reliable sources, there is no need to search endlessly through dozens of websites, Craigslist listings, misleading...