Ventura 66 V Bellows Camera by AGFA, circa 1945 - 1950

In my never ending search for accessories for my early 1950's Bundesgrenzschutz bicycle, I come across all kinds of cool things, but this latest one is one of the best "non-issue" items I've acquired.  The item up for show today is a mid 1940's, to 1950, post-war bellows camera.  

The camera is German made by the AGFA company of Munich, Germany.  It is marked "MADE IN GERMANY, U.S. ZONE".  This dates the camera to the 1945 to 1950 time frame.  

This would make the camera correct for an early BGS trooper to have been carrying it while touring around the base on the "Dienstrahd" bicycle.  The U.S. Zone designation indicates the time period after WW2 when Germany was divided up into the different zones that were occupied by the various Allied military forces.

For more information on these medium-format, folding cameras, check out this great website:
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~yue/misc/AnscAgfa.html


As an interesting side note, here is the list of "Made In" inscriptions and the dates they were used to help you narrow the era of the old German made items....... this is in now way hard and fast, and will still see "made in Germany" on items throughout the post-war years.  If you do see any of the "made in" phrases listed below, it will certainly help you narrow the age of the item down.

1945 - 1950     U.S. Zone
1950 - 1954     Western Germany
1955 - 1989     West Germany
1990 - now       Germany


And now the moment we've all been waiting for.......... here's the photo album of this wonderful little camera:

Bundesgrenzschutz Geschirr, BGS Plates & Cup Dining Set

I received a very unique and wonderful gift from a friend in Berlin the other day........... and original set of porcelain dishes and cup from the Bundesgrenzschutz!

These dishes were standard in the dining rooms of the BGS units in West Germany up until the BGS was renamed the Bundespolizei, and ceased to be the Bundesgrenzschutz in 2005.  

After 1990, when East Germany rejoined with the West, the BGS units in the former East Germany, continued to use the old dining ware from the east German Volkspolizei, Grenztruppen, and NVA.  I will be on the lookout for a set of these dishes to accompany my BGS marked set.............

This BGS dining set is very heavy duty and beautiful!  They are a wonderful addition to my ever growing collection of Bundesgrenzschutz items,


Here are a few of the hallmarks on the bottom of the plates and cup:

Here are the photos of the set:

And now to finish things off, here are  few photos of a BGS Christmas celebration in the BGS dining hall...... sometime in the 1950's or 1960's.  You can see the dining ware on the tables........

 

Rheinland-Pfalz Polizei & Saarland Polizei, Hat Badges

To finish up this little run of German Police hat badges and patches, let's end with two more..........

The first is a hat badge for the Rheinland-Pfalz Polizei......

and the second is a hat badge for the Saarland Polizei.

These two hat badges date to the post-1975 era.  They are attached to the hat with metal prongs.

Here are some photos of the Rheinland-Pfalz badge:

Here are some photos of the Saarland badge:

To finish things up, here are some archive photos from the original Polizei departments:

Rheinland-Pflaz Polizei:

Saarland Polizei:

Hamburg Polizei Patch

Since I've been dragging out my old German police patches and badges for the blog these last few days, I figured I ought to keep on the theme and showcase one more patch.

This is a uniform patch from the old green style Hamburg Polizei uniforms.  The green uniforms, and this style patch, were adopted in 1975.  They are obsolete now that the Hamburg Polizei have switched over to the standard blue police uniforms.  I believe this was around 2007.

Here is a good web page with great information about the Hamburg Polizei:
http://www.policemotorunits.com/id298.html 

Here are a few pictures of my Hamburg Polizei patch:

And to finish things off, here are a few Hamburg Polizei archive photos:

1980 Clash Concert Riots