Some words about Wehrmacht Awards Forum

I have to bring something up...

Many of you visit the Wehrmacht Awards forums (I actually have a link to it on the right side of the page), and utilize it as a great source of information for militaria collecting - and it certainly is.

But yesterday I made some posts about a couple of late war badges that we have on the auction. As Vonn Krueger, one of our German describers, noted, they were interesting because it used to be that no one ever wanted late war badges because they were so crude and presumed to be easily faked. Today, it's the intricate badges that are commonly reproduced and these late badges have been becoming more and more popular and accepted as genuine. I put a couple of images up and links to them on the site. Well, I had to get out my umbrella over here because "it" started raining down.

First people accused me of "advertising" for Manion's. The reason I posted these items in the first place was in response to other forum members requesting I post interesting items for comment and evaluation. I had hoped to get a discussion going about these late war items, and thought someone would mention what Vonn and I had talked about. These badges already have plenty of bids on them, it was in no way an attempt to persuade WA members into bidding on them. This seemed obvious to me.

So, one post was removed and the other closed. Before the first one was removed some dude was posting, like it was his last day on earth, about how unfair it was for me to "advertise" on the forum and even got all paranoid about how I had changed my e-mail address that afternoon as well (will get to that in a minute). Ok - worst case those posts may have been public relations, but advertising is something you pay for...but I digress, and am not here to give a Communications 101 course. Seriously, I was just trying to use our absolutely unbelievable access to WWII German militaria to contribute to the forum.

It is funny to me that people can speak negatively about Manion's till they're blue in the face on the forum, but I make one post about an interesting aspect of the hobby, which happened to involve items we have on the auction, and people are so upset about it - had I waited until the auction ended would it have been different? I suppose it is basically impossible for me to make a post mentioning the auction and not have it construed as "advertising". We are surrounded by WWII German items here - literally, if you have never been here then you have no idea about the massive amount of stuff we have. Thousands and thousands and thousands of items - like nowhere in the world, I guarantee. Sorry I made the unspeakable error of mentioning some of it on WA, sheesh.

Anyway, what prompted this rant in the first place is I am now locked out of the forum and was not even able to defend myself! I had to take it here. I suspect ( I hope) it only had to do with me updating my e-mail address. It now says I do not have access to that page when I try to respond to a thread. For Pete's sake, I just noticed I had an e-mail address up there that I don't use very much anymore and updated it - why would that restrict my access? Also, my paid Association Member status has been removed - what is up with that? I have e-mailed them several times, but have only gotten one response from a moderator who said they would look into it. Anyway, the guy I mentioned earlier points out that it is highly suspicious that I have changed my e-mail address - give me a break, I was just updating my info.

Then a guy jumps on saying how we owe him money (which had nothing to do with the thread). So I check into it, and if it is the guy I think it is, we sent out a check over a year ago that has never been cashed. I try to call and e-mail him to get it straightened out, but with no response thus far. We're not just sending a check out until we verify your address (you know who you are - call me directly and we will get it taken care of).

Well, while I am at it I might as well address another aspect. We are always amazed that people will post about "how we owe them money" but have never once called us to get it taken care of. Then come to find out they had consigned using another customer's number and that person had not paid them, had used money from their sales to buy from the auction, had been paid and their wife took the check, or one of a number of other things.

Sure, mistakes happen and I'm not saying that we haven't had some problems in the past, but guys - if there is a problem call us and we will get it taken care of - hell, call me directly and I will see to it. We are not here to try to "get over on you", we are here to rebuild a very unique business that serves the collecting community.

Now I'm not bagging on the forum or the members - heck, I link to it here - I just feel like we take more flak than we should out there.

I will now step down from my soapbox.

Ideas, comments, problems, suggestions, complaints? Call me - 866.626.4661 - ext. 1018.

Andrew