My Amazing Belt Buckle Collection

This is Jon's collection of Dug relic belt buckles. I didn't really mean to start it, it just started to grow. I like relics from identified places, and one of the things that can be found in many different battlefields are belt buckles. So it just kind of happened. I am trying to not collect good condition buckles, but only ones that were lost during the wars and have seen action.  A number have turned out to be German buckles reworked by the Soviets for their own use. Probably tossed away when they found a better one. The large number of SS buckles is just a coincidence. I did not go out of my way to collect those. And I have just not had much luck with good WW1 buckles.

I am always interested in adding to the collection if you have a found buckle that comes from an identified place. I prefer the found location to be as accurate as possible, but in many cases all I can get is the provenance is just the area of a specific campaign.  Drop me a line at    jon at gawne dot com       if you have a dug buckle you'd like to give me or sell me at a reasonable cost.....

	WW1	1914-1915	found in the Vosges Mountains about 1990 - From JPV	Early French Army, brass. I think this one is what got me started, as I was really struck by the patterns of corrosion on the brass.
	WW1		found in the Carapathian Mountains	Austrian Army, Brass.  Found by WG
	WW1		found in the Carapathian Mountains	Austrian Army, Brass. Found by WG
	WW1	1917-1918	Found Near Chateau Thierry	German (Prussian) Army- Later war Steel. . note how the face is so paper thin some letters are rusted out leaving a hole in their shape.
	WW1	1918	Found at field hospital location at  ***	Two different US belt buckles found in the trash heap of a field hospital which means they almost certainly came from discarded uniforms of wounded soldiers. Top one is patent date 1904, while the other is marked to the Russell Manufacturing company. Found by CT
WW2 Buckles De-Nazified by the Russians and used by Soviet soldiers
	WW2	1944-1945	Found in the Kurland Pocket, 2000	German army- Aluminum, Central area cut out most probably for use by Russian soldiers at the time.  Found in Russian Trenchline.
	WW2	1944-1945	Found in the Kurland Pocket, Latvia. 2005	Waffen SS- Steel, Central area cut out most probably for use by Russian soldiers at the time.
	WW2	1944-1945	Kurland Pocket	German - entire central part cut out for use by Russian soldiers. Part of the leather is still in place.
	WW2	1944-45	Found in the Kurland Pocket, Latvia. 2006	Germany Army- face shaved down and a brass plate (from a shell casing?) fastened to the front by the Soviets. The brass plate is held on by four corner rivets.
Non-modified WW2 Buckles
	WW2	1944	Found in  Normandy	This is an American trouser buckle, which is not as cool as other countries, but hey- its a buckle. Found by a friend at the Ghost Ridge.
	WW2		From a small forgotten fight on the Dutch-Belgian Border	German Army, Aluminum, crushed by something. Here's a shot of it with other items from the same day's hunt Found by LP in 2004 at Gorp en Roovert
	WW2	1945	The Reichswald Forest	German Army, Steel, Found by LP
	WW2	1944	The Elsenborn Ridge- Battle of the Bulge	Waffen SS, found with a boot tap rusted to it (the item at lower right). I kind of hate to try and clean it, but maybe one day I will give it a try
	WW2	1942-1944	Found near Kiev	Waffen SS - Steel. Dug near Kiev "many years ago" by a local
	WW2	1944	Huelgoat, Brittany	German paratrooper- found  in 1997 at the site of a German Para training depot of the 3rd Para Div. . Found by YC
	WW2	1945	Oder River defenses	Steel SS buckle- I am told that the SS ones rust much more than the Army one- must be due to the metal content. Scrap of leather remains in theback.
	WW2	1945	Posttsdman	Officers buckle- Asman and sons marked.
	WW2	1944	Narva, Estonia, 2006	Russian Army, Steel buckle, sometimes called the model 1944.
	WW2	1944		Russian Army Brass Buckle ,    This one was found at Stalag308 Nauhammer in Swietosow, Poland. Almost surely worn by  soviet POW there. .  (stamping  on reverse)
	WW2	1944		Russian Army Brass Buckle, This was is slightly crushed, and found in a river in the Carpathian Mountains in Southeast Poland in an area where the Germans held up the Soviet Army for over a month in 1944. Note the crud on the back which looks to be the remains of the leather belt.

Cool Dug Buckles I've missed out on and wish I had been able to add them to my collection.   

	WW1			Imperial WW1 Russian Artillery Buckle.
	WW2			German Army- with a design (an anchor? a Divisional Marking? ) carved into it. Found in the Ardennes region
	WW2			German buckle shaved down to a flat surface, then a star hammered into it. I have been told some of these may be faked.

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