Bargains, rare, interesting or bizarre items of militaria found for sale on the internet.
No matter what you collect, it’s always that much nicer to find a unit marked item. This example of an Imperial German sawback Ersatz Seitengewehre 98/05 is particularly nice, and indeed rare as it’s marked up to the 95th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Company, weapon number 63.
In the early years of WW1, German industries were suffering shortages in raw materials and they moved towards simplified designs that made for easier mass production. These items were referred to as Ersatz, German for substitute. There are so many variations in these weapons, that you often find subtle differences. Indeed, they can form a collection on their own.
These sawbacked bayonets caused an outcry in the British press, who had obviously forgotten that the British had only a few decades before equipped their Artillery, Engineers and Infantry with similar bayonets.
Formed in 1915, the 95th Field Artillery Regiment was part of the 43rd Mixed Ersatz Brigade, 10th Ersatz Division and took part in the Battles of the Somme, Aisne, Passchendale, Lys and Cambrai.
The seller has only seen a few unit marked Ersatz sawbacked S98/05 bayonets, which makes this exceptional value at £450 from www.bayonetman.com
Next we have something a little bit different, a nice German WW2 MG34/42 ammo box. Originally designed to hold 250 rounds of 7.92mm ammunition, this later war steel example has been period converted into a medical or first aid box. Overpainted white with red crosses, including white paint over the leather on handles, original colour showing underneath.
Red cross painted items should always be approached with extreme caution, especially helmets. It’s very important to pay attention to age, wear, patina and generally your gut instinct on these. This example shows nice wear and age, having been found locally in Holland. Reasonably priced at €225 from www.ea-militaria.nl
A very rare item indeed is this SS Totenkopfverbände black service M32 overcoat for Oberscharführer in 4 Hundertschaft -Totenkopfstandarte Thüringen. This early private purchase example is in very good condition, with a nice quality embroidered “4” Totenkopf collar tab and flatwire Thuringen cuff title
From April 1935, when the death’s head insignia was introduced, until 1937, this collar patch indicated Hundertschaften numbers from 1 to 25. These were seemingly randomly spread across the guard units, but the numerals were probably assigned based on the takeover of the camps and the build-up of the units by Eicke and his KL Inspectorate.
In 1937 those individual units were re-organized into 3 regiments and the Hundertschaften numbers were now ordered numerically across those regiments. So now a patch with a 4 indicated that the wearer was a member of SS- Totenkopfstandarte/III Thüringen.
However that system only lasted one year and in August 1938 the system was simplified with each of the regiments being divided into 4 Sturmbannen, each containing 4 Hundertschaften with the numbers being the same in the each regiment. Thüringen’s Sturmbann I then contained Hundertschaften 1-4 and so did Brandenburg’s and Thueringen’s.
A top end item for the specialist SS collector, price is on request at www.aboutww2militaria.com
