Nazi Eagle stamped V Block

[jar944]

I guess you could grind the stamp off a vee block, and no one would know afterwards, though grinding the stamps off of something like thr mg42 trunion i posted above would be odd, because stamp or not, it's kind of obvious who made it.

 

[Buckgnarly]

I grew up with a father who published pictorial books on the FW190, spent MANY hours at flea markets, gun shows, militaria shows etc, searching for old pics GIs took. Saw lots of cool war trophies and historical pieces.
So naturally I grabbed a ton of stuff during my times in Iraq, a piece of the crossed swords in Baghdad being my favorite. It's history, and may it NEVER, EVER be forgotten. It's sad to see people just want to destroy every bit, as if merely possessing it will transform you into the people who used/owned it in the past.

Cool piece OP, every bit of history has stories to tell, good OR bad!

 

[Beerhippie]

^ As it has been historically for all of known history, and most likely prior to that as well.
As it should be.
The native Americans took scalps, which I always thought was really a more "personal" way of doing it.
We pretend we are more civilized now, so we take knives and guns.

Has absolutely nothing at all to do with "promoting" or "glorifying" the religious or political tenets of the defeated. It is 100% about "I kicked your *** and took your ****."

Personally, I myself would prefer scalps.

The native practice of taking scalps was derived from whites taking scalps for the bounty.

 

[TurnipTruck]

I don’t think there is enough wall thickness to grind the eagle from this (M30?), so I guess we will have to leave it.

This rifle’s wartime history is lost to time, but it has an amazing postwar story!

 

[Firebrick43]

The native practice of taking scalps was derived from whites taking scalps for the bounty.

Many disagree

It was encouraged by the European settlers via bounties but it existed already as a custom.

Scalping | EBSCO

Scalping is a historical practice that involved the removal of the scalp from a person's head, primarily associated with various Indigenous tribes in North America and parts of South America. This custom is believed to have existed before European contact, with evidence suggesting it was deeply...

www.ebsco.com

 

[Firebrick43]

I guess you could grind the stamp off a vee block, and no one would know afterwards, though grinding the stamps off of something like thr mg42 trunion i posted above would be odd, because stamp or not, it's kind of obvious who made it.

My 82 year old neighbors best friend in high school is Jewish. His father fought in WW2 and was somehow able to get home seven mp40 sub machine guns. No idea how he did it?

Later each son and nephew got one. I replaced the bolt charging handle for him a few years ago and he thanked me by letting us shoot a box of ammo thru it.

He was proud as hell that his dad took the guns from those bastards.

 

[jar944]

My 82 year old neighbors best friend in high school is Jewish. His father fought in WW2 and was somehow able to get home seven mp40 sub machine guns. No idea how he did it?

Later each son and nephew got one. I replaced the bolt charging handle for him a few years ago and he thanked me by letting us shoot a box of ammo thru it.

He was proud as hell that his dad took the guns from those bastards.

My grandfather's neighbor and best friend brought back a mp40. Apparently it wasn't that hard.

 

[cosmokenney]

That is a nice hand scraped v-block. I would run some precision stones on the v surfaces and not touch it otherwise.

 

[jabberwoki]

Wow..

 

[slowtwitch73]

Serious thread drift here...

Yeah scalping was for sure was a thing with indigenous tribes... many early first hand accounts' records, etc.

 

[DocsMachine]

It used to be common- though maybe not so much up here in Alaska- to get gas cylinders with a Nazi eagle symbol. The Army brought back tons of them from Europe, and as they used similar specs as ours, a lot of them got into the exchange stream.

And as the steel cylinders essentially don't wear out, they could still be found well into the 80s and 90s. One of I think Fournier's early metalshaping books has a photo of one he'd "just gotten" (book written in the early 80s, as I recall) that had a "44" test date, and a eagle-and-******** stamp.

(Somewhere around here I have a photo I personally took of a 20LB CO2 tank, that had a whole row of hydrotest stamps, with the oldest I think dating back to 1941. Nothing war-related, just evidence the tanks stay in the system for decades, unless damaged or lost.)

Doc.

 

[PCustoms]

It used to be common- though maybe not so much up here in Alaska- to get gas cylinders with a Nazi eagle symbol. The Army brought back tons of them from Europe, and as they used similar specs as ours, a lot of them got into the exchange stream.

And as the steel cylinders essentially don't wear out, they could still be found well into the 80s and 90s. One of I think Fournier's early metalshaping books has a photo of one he'd "just gotten" (book written in the early 80s, as I recall) that had a "44" test date, and a eagle-and-******** stamp.

I've heard of supposedly ******** stamped cylinders, but thought that was a myth as it was really some other logo.

Never heard of one with the actual eagle

 

[DocsMachine]

Nope, that's a ******** all right. There's another pic, though, that shows one where somebody had "filled in" the gaps between the arms, making it into a grid of four small squares.

I seem to recall the one in the book had the eagle, much like the V-block shown, but I'll readily admit it's been a while since I saw that, and may well be mistaken.

Doc.

 

[TurnipTruck]

I personally took this pic in 2014.
I once was employed to keep a half-dozen critical analyzers on-line, so I was seemingly continuously changing out cylinders of varying lethality. After several hundred cylinders, you start noticing stuff.

This cylinder had three columns of dates and the neck was shaped differently.
I would guess one out of twenty would have the “four pane window” stamp covering up the older ********. In this case, the ******** had not yet been acquired by the Germans, so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

 

[PCustoms]

I personally took this pic in 2014.
I once was employed to keep a half-dozen critical analyzers on-line, so I was seemingly continuously changing out cylinders of varying lethality. After several hundred cylinders, you start noticing stuff.

This cylinder had three columns of dates and the neck was shaped differently.
I would guess one out of twenty would have the “four pane window” stamp covering up the older ********. In this case, the ******** had not yet been acquired by the Germans, so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

Isn't that oriented in the opposite direction?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

I've never seen a photo or a video of a cylinder that was a Nazi ********. It's hard for us to comprehend now, but it really was a symbol of good luck, adopted across many industries.

Back on page 1 I posted a link to the Buffum Tool Co thread down here on the Vintage Board and one of my Buffum tools, a machinists screwdriver, with two very clear examples of their ******** shaped corporate logo on the grips.

Here is another. Mossberg motorcycle tire spoons, made right here in the good ol', also from the 1920's, with ******** symbols on the leatherette sheath.

 

[TurnipTruck]

In this case, the ******** had not yet been acquired by the Germans, so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

Isn't that oriented in the opposite direction?

It is.

 

[DocsMachine]

In this case, the ******** had not yet been acquired by the Germans, so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

Isn't that oriented in the opposite direction?

-Good point. It's definitely opposite of that stamped on the V-block. But here's one pointed the other way.

Inconsistent stamping? Somebody not paying attention to "mirroring" the stamp? What else would the logo be, since the other use, as noted in this thread, was largely just as a sort of "good luck charm".

Doc.

 

[Hohn]

There is a very good chance your V-Block came to America in a WWII veteran’s duffle bag; part on the booty/loot/war souvenirs all over this country - proper place, of course, is with the family as a memento to a valiant service the ‘Great Generation’ provided to the world; that value sorely fading.

Yes, quite a good chance it was a bring back.

I was re-reading my granddad’s WW2 memoirs today and he recounted the story of getting 10 day leave from his recovery hospital in Clinton Iowa to go home to La Farge and see his family. His dad got some extra gas coupons to come get him because my grandad was, after months of recovering from combat wounds, still in no shape to drive himself or do much.

A fellow soldier at the hospital was also from WI (Medford and looking for a ride to Viroqua to catch a bus. He knew my grandad was from Vernon County WI and so my granddad arranged with my great-graddad to give mr Stan Henline a ride to Viroqua to catch a bus to Medford. Stan had a particularly heavy bag that my greatgrandfather teased “was a machine gun or something.”

Years later my granddad was in Medford and stopped in a Henline Hardware to see Stan. There was a German machine gun in the window!

How’d that get there, hmm?

 

[DocsMachine]

It's hard for us to comprehend now, but it really was a symbol of good luck, adopted across many industries.

-I have a hard time believing anyone would stamp a 'good luck charm' on a gas bottle. Or really, stamp anything that doesn't have to do with the tank ID.

That green one I linked above, has "plus" marks after the year, I'd wager that means something, and isn't just for decoration.

Doc.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I have a hard time believing anyone would stamp a 'good luck charm' on a gas bottle. Or really, stamp anything that doesn't have to do with the tank ID.

I was talking about the origins of the symbol and why it was so widely adopted across many industries as a symbol, logo, or marking, not it's literal functional purpose on the cylinder, Doc. (The word "********" in the original Sanskrit means "well-being".) My understanding is that it was used by a manufacturer or a service as a kind of verification or validation marking with the date for compliance, refill, etc, along with other kinds of markings and symbols. None of them decoration. But none of them Nazi, either.

 

[DocsMachine]

My understanding is that it was used by a manufacturer or a service as a kind of verification or validation marking with the date for compliance, refill, etc.

-I suppose I can buy that. It'd be nice if there was some official explanation for it, though I suppose at this late date, and given the... taint of the symbol, combined with the probably obscure use in the first place, might make that difficult.

It would explain, though, why the symbol is "flat" (not tilted points-up as in the Nazi symbol) and that there's both "left facing" and "right facing" versions.

Doc.

 

[Jack Ryan]

The ******** on a gas cylinder was the mark of Praxair and they were made in the US. After WW2, when the symbol had been tarnished, it was filled in to become a window.

Here is an American valve.



Jack

 

[1982fxr]

The native practice of taking scalps was derived from whites taking scalps for the bounty.

Absolutely untrue.

 

[Buckgnarly]

I personally took this pic in 2014.
I once was employed to keep a half-dozen critical analyzers on-line, so I was seemingly continuously changing out cylinders of varying lethality. After several hundred cylinders, you start noticing stuff.

This cylinder had three columns of dates and the neck was shaped differently.
I would guess one out of twenty would have the “four pane window” stamp covering up the older ********. In this case, the ******** had not yet been acquired by the Germans, so it must have been a manufacturer’s stamp?

To hell with the symbol, what kind of fun (dangerous) can you have with a whole TANK of Hydrogen!?!?!?

 

[cvairwerks]

To hell with the symbol, what kind of fun (dangerous) can you have with a whole TANK of Hydrogen!?!?!?

Weld a lot of aluminum parts.

 

[PCustoms]

Weld a lot of aluminum parts.

Hydrogen???

 

[William Payne]

History is history the good and the bad and that is something to hold on to. I don't even know if I would use it. I would just hold onto it as sort of a museum piece.

 

[William Payne]

Weld a lot of aluminum parts.

Hydrogen???

Technically you can gas weld aluminium with hydrogen gas. Not common but very old school technique. Helium as an inert gas in electric welding is also highly effective for aluminium welding.

 

[cvairwerks]

Hydrogen???

Yep, takes a different flux than normal and glasses/goggles with a special tint to cut the sodium flare.
Kent did a neat little demo on welding 5052 here:

 

[Firebrick43]

I was talking about the origins of the symbol and why it was so widely adopted across many industries as a symbol, logo, or marking, not it's literal functional purpose on the cylinder, Doc. (The word "********" in the original Sanskrit means "well-being".) My understanding is that it was used by a manufacturer or a service as a kind of verification or validation marking with the date for compliance, refill, etc, along with other kinds of markings and symbols. None of them decoration. But none of them Nazi, either.

Its a hydrotest date, performed by the Linde corporation.

Carl Von Linde the "father" of compressed gasses in the modern use. His mother was Swiss and he attended a Swiss university.

My family is German Baptist (Mennonites) and many of the Mennonites and Amish came from the border region of Switzerland and Germany.

While I cant attest to the amish usage, the German Baptist used the ******** with flags the left, up until a few years before WW2. The local church where I grew up had some work done to the foyer in 1997 or 1998 and when they pulled up the floor there was a layer underneath with swastikas. One of the elders remembered as a boy, that in 1939 or 1940 they covered it up. Two families had emigrated from the border of Switzerland in 1939, bringing news of what was really going on in Germany.

While older members spoke a dialect of german it wasn't out of pride or national identity as the germans slaughtered the mennonites as well earlier, usually by tying them up and throwing them in the rivers to be drowned.


Any ways, the American division of the Linde Corporation was confiscated from the germans in 1917 because of WW1 and given to Union Carbide.

Carl Von Linde died in 1934 at the age of 92 so maybe he saw the beginning of the symbol being subverted by the Nazi's?

 

[Hohn]

Yep, takes a different flux than normal and glasses/goggles with a special tint to cut the sodium flare.
Kent did a neat little demo on welding 5052 here:

RIP Kent. What a loss.

 

[PCustoms]

Yep, takes a different flux than normal and glasses/goggles with a special tint to cut the sodium flare.
Kent did a neat little demo on welding 5052 here:

Wasn't even thinking gas welding, thanks!

 

[Debcrow]

Are you not aware that Nazi collectibles is a huge popular sub-segment of the WWII collectibles hobby? Or do you just think it's wrong?

If the latter, there's no need to argue. But the idea that anything needs to be made up or defended to explain it is as absurd as the idea that erasing the mark can somehow obliterate what it stood for from existence.

Those who who do not learn the lessons of history...
will fail their exams at the end of the semester!

So many things have been given the PC stamp of not correct and the woke attitude of some people tends to make me put them in the same camp as book burning (which the Nazi regime did). Blocking history or twisting the truth of it does not change the past. We are better off learning from the rights and wrongs of the past than blurring them.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks for the history and anecdote @Firebrick43. This bit...

...the American division of the Linde Corporation was confiscated from the germans in 1917 because of WW1 and given to Union Carbide.

...is the same thing that happened to American emigre Robert Bosch's original magneto company! I summarized it here in a thread about "Fritz the Flyer" logo (and other) ignition wrenches down here on the Vintage Board...

Robert Bosch, a young German émigré, invented the magneto, and his Bosch Magneto Company made and sold them out of Springfield, Mass. with great success here in the US. The US government (Alien Property Custodian) seized the property and all its equipment in 1918 (think WWI!) and sold it. Seeking to take advantage of the popularity of a product they had absolutely no hand in creating, the buyers established American Bosch and put the fancified AB behind the same “Fritz the Flyer” guy. Robert Bosch continued innovating and making ignition systems and other electrical appliances out of his native Stuttgart. So, technically, not the same, but saying they’re not related conceals their intertwined (and somewhat dark) history.

 

[Beerhippie]

Technically you can gas weld aluminium with hydrogen gas. Not common but very old school technique. Helium as an inert gas in electric welding is also highly effective for aluminium welding.

Also used for underwater welding, where acetylene is explosive due to the pressure and arc... well, it's underwater.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Other than little snippets that probably went something like this...

"Wo ist mein Gott-verdammter maschinenbauerblock?"

...Marty's Nazi V-block has never been the object of or catalyst for as much discussion as this in its long well-preserved life!

 

[four.cycle]

Those who who do not learn the lessons of history...

If we do not know where we have been, we can not know where we are going.

 

[Beerhippie]

If we do not know where we have been, we can not know where we are going.

OTOH, if you don't much care where you're going, you're never lost.

 

[four.cycle]

^ That's fine in the woods. Not so much when dealing with history.

(FTR: I have not gotten lost in the woods for at least a year now.)