This document (21 x 14.75cm) commemorates the fighting in the new year/spring of 1942 to notify this NCO that he had been awarded the VK2 with swords. It appears to be personally signed by Generaloberst von Kleist, commander of 1st Panzerarmee. It is franked with the headquarters seal for the 1st Panzerarmee.

This is a classic pair of Artois-style buckles from the end of the American Wars, but probably pre-dating the French Revolution of 1789. Eley (worked from 1770, died in 1824) of Clerkenwell Green, London, a silversmith, was the king of 18th-century bucklemakers and the inventor of the patent spring clip mechanism.

The Camp Men - The SS Officers who ran the Nazi Concentraton Camp System by French L. MacLean, published by Schiffer, USA, 1999, hardback, 380 pages (22 x 28.5 cm). It gives details, where known, of service histories and medal awards and is copiously illustrated with all the 'bad guys'!

This sepia photograph, pasted on a card page torn from a British military album, shows a KuK Hussar regiment on parade. There are officers and trumpeters in front, with the bulk of the regiment in double files behind. The caption in English underneath simply says 'Austrian Hussars'.

This silk sash with the little enamel badge, both sporting the Imperial black/white/red colours, epitomises the student duelling world of this era, together with the logo (picked out in silver bullion) 'Rast Ich so rost Ich', loosely: 'Inactive I rust'. In Bavaria the duelling tradition was still active into the 1950s.