That grenade looks very scary!  I think I would have left it in the ground!  Whats up with that????     Steve

. Jeep spares search today.    One of the items that I was searching for this morning was a new old stock grease nipple to replace a snapped one on a road spring grease shaft.  Not only did I find them, I found the sheet giving the price I paid for them £2.50 for twelve, and even the name of the person I bought them off, just missing a date of purchase on the paperwork.   I'm sure the seller will recognise his paperwork and hand-writing and deeply regret the prices he sold all this new old stock for back then.       Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent,   June 17  2024.    ...  

Thank you Allan for the knowledge. I will put that in my notes.

The metal background trimmings were popular in Germany in the 1950's. I would say that this wing and oval piece was German made in that timeframe. It is a striking example.   Allan

What is really interesting about this wing is that the squares on the back, which were struck into the back side of the wing in order to help the jeweler with the placement of the pins, are not equal sized. If they were simply designed to aid in the placement of clutch prongs, I would expect both squares to be the exact same size. What we see however is that they are rectangular. The one on the right is decidedly larger than the rectangle on the left and the orientation of the two rectangles is also different with the one on the left being skinnier and taller than the one on the right.  This leads me to the conclusion that the wing was designed to take a pin and catch rather than clutch prongs.    That being said, it was determined that the clutch back insignia looked nicer on the uniform since it laid flush against the uniform material where the pin left a gap. It was also significantly cheaper to create a clutch back wing that it was to make a pin backed wing simply because the clutches didn't require a hinge or moving lock for the catch.   Early pin back wings could exist, but I would assume that it was a really small number. Seeing the pin back version above, it looks to me like a generic hinge and catch were applied which did not conform to the size of the rectangles on the back of the wing. That leads me to the conclusion that this particular example was NOT one that left the factory in this configuration.   Allan

Hello Gerard, That's an interesting entrenching tool you're using. What's the story on it?

Check photo # 7. Fork, SILCO.

Beautiful! Hope to find one of these one day!   Where did you find this one?

His rank is listed as "Sergeant" in all Morning Reports, Separation Record, etc.  I am assuming 3x stripes?  Or can I not be so sure?   Thank you for the link, I can even order multiple pairs!

. Funny what you find while looking for something else . . . . . . .    Looking through my Jeep spares today for something else I re-discovered this take-off  ' F ' marked Ford hand-brake handle.  Somedays it's fun searching through old spares containers, found several other pieces I will be making use of, and memorised other pieces that might be needed in the future.        Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent,   June 17  2024.    ...