WOW. Very nicely done. As they always say, "Any landing you can walk away; in this case swim, from, is a good landing. The pilot survived. But, really a great dio.   Semper Fi.   Manny 

Thanks for translation and fast response - I appreciate it!   Mark sends

The characters are as follows. ①歩　二三八 ②ソ ③番　九五   ① indicates "Infantry" and "238", which is presumed to be the regiment number. ② It is pronounced "So", but it is unclear what it means. Usually, the character in this position indicates a battalion or company, etc. ③ It indicates "No.95", which is presumed to be an ID number.   There are many variations in how dog tags for this type of NCO are filled out, so there may be errors

Welcome Martin.  I see you have already helped some of your fellow members identify some of their mystery items.  Thanks for your help.   I generally collect Polizei items from various German, and other, Imperial to DDR time period units.  I also collect edged weapons and wrote a book on German bayonets from 1919-1945.  But, like most of us here other items interest me as well.   George  

Martin,   Welcome aboard!   Thank you for your assistance in identifying these items on this thread.  Very helpful to your fellow members of the forum.   Keep up the good work.   George  

This dog tag is coming my way....any thoughts as to authenticity?  Also, a translation would be helpful - other than numbers, I'm lousy at deciphering kanji. The reverse is blank.   Thanks in advance for the help!     Mark sends

Martin, your German is perfect but you´re right, we should go on in English here. To answer your question. I collected US Army SSI for more than two decades. I quit collecting some years ago and started modeling again. I´m still interested in Bundeswehr insignia, mainly pocket hangers and SSI, but no real hunting any more. What´s you collecting focus?   Lars

It’s more like what don’t I collect. Anything real that I come across.

Thank you very much for the translation! I really appreciate it.

Mark, I can help you!   This is a spanish para helmet. Called the M65 model. It stands for 1965 when spanish army adapted the US M1 helmet. Under the visor different units painted different colors, and numbers. Spain bought in 1976 helmets from VDN. The german manufacturer: Vereinigte Deutsche Nickelwerke in Schwerte. This manufacturer ordered the liners from Schuberth Werke in Braunschweig. That`s why there is SW inside the liner.   Many Greetings, Martin

You are absolutely right! That`s exactly what I think of when I hear this word. 😀 I gues this civil para club was founded somewhen in the late 90ies or early 2000 years and consisted only of a few members.

Thank you Preppy! I can see you are from the US. What I like doing for already several years now I travel the US via google street view and have seen so many locations one wouldn`t have never ever seen 20 years ago. Many historical locations I heard of when I was a kid I could already discover thanks to this website. I just scroll over the map and look up all the historical markers. I found out so many interesting things. 😀 What do you collect? Many Greetings, Martin