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At the beginning of 1981 I was working in Egypt, in the Cairo Branch of
an italian bank and went to visit El Alamein battle fields and british, german
and italian war cemeteries.
I owe to the local native guardians of the german and italian ones the
involuntary merit to have "initiated" me into militaria collecting.
People who had the chance to go there for
sure should have been offered by the guardians a wide range of war relics of
every kind that beduin shepherds were con'tinuously finding in desert coming
out from the sand and punctually selling to the above cemeteries' guardians
who, in their turn, were re-selling to visitors as a further way to make ends
meet.
Most of those relics were in general poor
conditions,but it was not so rare to find some of them in still acceptable
state .
I remember - for instance - to have found, among other items, an italian
soldier's dog tag and to have managed to find the owner once I came to Italy
for holidays .
He was still alive was nearly 62 years old and cried so much for that
poor piece of metal (which suddenly recalled to his mind a"storm" of
memories gathered with comrades-in-arms,sorrowful happenings and sufferings)
found again after he had trown it away in the desert almost 40 years before, on
being captured by the enemy!
He addressed to me a touching letter of
thanks which I still keep with great care.
Since then I got “sick” of
collecting W.W.II militaria and went on for more than 20 years getting in touch
with many collectors and dealers in Italy and abroad.
By this token, here I feel I owe a lot of
thanks to Mr.Pier Raniero Sciarra of Rome, Mr.Alfredo Bartocci of Florence,
Mr.Malcom Fisher (Regimentals) and Mr.Christopher Seidler of London, Mr.Helmut
Weitze of Amburg, Mr.Kenny Andrew
(The Treasure Bunker)
of Glasgow, Mr. Joe Stone of Orange City (Fl. U.S.A.), Mr.Alessandro Paolini of
Milan (the greatest authority for italian medals and badges), and Mr. Aldo
Dessì (Caricat) of Parma, who helped me so much in growing as militaria
collector, by giving me a lot of useful information and by alerting me towards
the huge quantity of fakes present in the markets and – unfortunately
– even in some auction houses’sales.
Since then I got "sick" of collecting W.W.II militaria and
went on for more then 20 years getting in touch with many collectors and
dealers in Italy and abroad.
The
quality of the collected items – of course – has been
little by little improving and even if with some – let’s say
– not proper purchase every now and then (but,who did not get a
“lemon” or even “lemons” in his militaria
collector’s life ??), from a few years I got access to highly qualified
standards of this sector and managed to secure beautiful pieces, a part of
which even “unique”, that are exhibited under the sections “Wonders’
Gallery” and “Famous Personalities related
objects”.
All
these objects for the time being are only exhibited for the
delight of the collectors “colleagues” who certainly will
appreciate them, but....maybe some of them could even change its position and
be moved to another Section at disposal of all those who want to secure
something of really special and rare.
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