We need a sub forum dedicated to @1911 's museum
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No I need a freaking secure building to put my stuff in. One of my spare bedrooms is full of my stuff. The really good original rare stuff is getting harder and harder to find. China is knocking most of the WWI & WWII stuff off now so you really have know what you are doing and be careful of what you buy. I hate what China is doing. Some sellers on Ebay are reselling and don’t realize they are selling fakes or they just don’t care. Many sellers try to represent something as original but only add one word to give them an out if someone questions the authenticity of what they are selling. I try to stay away from Ebay and deal with collectors and military supply business owners that I know and am familiar with. Thank God I started collecting many years ago. Prices have really gone up. Trying to find the really early high quality WWI stuff has really gotten hard to find and very expensive.
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Stuff like this very early excellent condition eagle rimmed button WWI 1911 mag pouch goes for a couple of a hundred bucks. Imagine having to collect everything to go along with it. You are into a couple of thousand just getting the correct basic everyday carry items. A one examples of what I am taking about is just the meat sack or mess kit pouch the goes on top of the 1910 haversack pack. You have to buy the correct meat pouch, correct mess kit, correct utensils, correct leather knife and fork holders and the proper bacon tin. That is several hundred bucks just for one properly filled meat pouch. I don’t say this to be bragging but to realize the amount of time effort and money that goes into collecting items such as this. I don’t want our history to get lost. As long as I have the time, desire and funds I will continue to collect items to preserve for future generations. I am only the current conservator.
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That lighter is cool. its things like that that most folks dont think about when they think about collecting. Im glad to see you have paid attention to the little details. I hope to see more of your stuff… and add to mine and share it too.. I thijnk that the WWII era is so fun to collect, its like living history… and having personal family ties to it makes it just that much better, its almost like you have a way to remember those who’ve passed by collecting… idk..maybe im off base here. but its how i feel.. anyways … great little lighter. carry on!
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wow thats a lot of stuff for a mess kit… i had no idea that was all from WWI… i do love that mag pouch though… that is too cool.
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You feel the exact same way that I do. Being in the military and most of the men in my family having served in every major war it really does give me a lot better insight into how they lived day to day. Packing the exact original equipment that they used in WWI & WWII just like thy packed it really gets you to understand just how impractical much of their equipment was. It is like comparing the equipment that I had in the first Gulf War to the equipment of guys in the last decade. Our Military equipment has come a drastically long way in the last century.
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I beg anyone who collects anything like this to please share your collection with us. I started this thread really hoping that more people would post some of their collection up. I don’t want to be the only one putting stuff up. If more people do it encourages me to do so. I don’t want everyone to think that there goes that SOB showing his crap off again. I always learn new stuff from other collectors that I didn’t know and see stuff that I wasn’t aware or or was using it improperly.
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IMO-The Poncho Liner aka “The Woobie” is the greatest military invention in the history of the universe.
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I only have one antique firearm. My wife’s grandfather picked it up in Europe during WW2 while with the Army Air Corpse. French St. Etienne Model 1874 Double Action Revolver. 11mm black powder brass cartridge.
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Absolutely, you will never get an argument from me on that issue. If you look at just about any firearm that I have posted the majority of them will be laying on mine. It is the exact same one that I was issued in 1988. I have a few more that I was able to requisition over the years. My original one stays on my bed. I spent way too many nights inside of it and my ponco on the ground. Unless it was really cold we never carried our fart sack on long range patrols.
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I have never seen one of those revolvers. That is definitely a cool item to have as a family heirloom. 
My Grandfather was also in the Army Air Corps. He flew 35 missions over Europe in the venerable old B17.
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Cool. I think he was a gunner in a B17 as well. A few years back I got to fly in a B-24 in formation with a B17. We did some circles around the National D-Day Memorial in my hometown of Bedford, VA.
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This is my Grandfather. I was able to find the official military records on all of his 35 missions over Europe. I have printed all of them out and put them in a binder. The total mission details is incredible. They recorded everything. The page below shows the flight position of his plane that day and the crew manifest. It is just one page out of over 20 just for that one mission.
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That had to be one of the coolest days of your life. There is still one B17 that attends some air shows and does plane rides in the B17. If I ever get the chance to get a ride I will no matter how much it costs. I have flown in many different military airplanes and helicopters but never in a WWII plane. The oldest thing that I flew in was an old C130.
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Moved from Pistols to C&R. When I go home I’ll upload my collection as well.
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I would really appreciate it. I love seeing other people’s collections. I always learn something new from them. History is the master key to so many things in life. We are loosing our real history at an alarming rate. It is hurting America more than most people realize. If it wasn’t so important then the Liberals wouldn’t be so dead set on erasing all traces of it.
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dude, you have a problem!
you need a larger couch 
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Your are absolutely right… I couldn’t fit them all on it. I was cleaning out and reorganizing one of my safes for more room. I had some of them laid out on the couch and snapped a pic. I love having the problem of not having enough room in your safes. It is a whole lot better than having a lot of free space. If you have a lot of free space in your safes then you need to get to work filling it.
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These two all original matching parts and pristine German Lugers are part of my collection. Both have very minimal honest holster wear. They have been well taken of. Both bores are bright and shiny with excellent rifling. The top Luger is a military contract P08 made by Mauser in 1940. It saw use in WWII. The bottom Luger is also military contract but it was made by DWM in 1917. It saw use in WWI. Both Lugers came complete with the original holsters, loading tool and two original magazines. These Lugers came from a WWII vet’s over 40 year firearm collection. Unfortunately he has passed away and the family is liquidating his entire collection. Fortunately for me I have picked up several of his WWI & WWII handguns. I am very fortunate to be able to pick both of these Lugers up out of an old collection. Serious deep pocket Luger collectors have picked up most of the pristine and rare Lugers. The price of all Lugers is still on the rise as the supply has dried up.
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