Cold War documents for sale
Listings for sale
No piece is listed in this category at the moment.
Have one to sell? Listing is free, and payment is secure. List a piece
Guides for these pieces
- Reading and keeping military photographs and documentsThe back of a postcard dates the print, the service record book opens the archives. How to identify a soldier, and store papers without destroying them.
- Militaria glossaryShell, crest, stamp, restrike, mounting, fourragère: the words used in listings and appraisals, each defined in one sentence.
- Inheriting military items: where to start, and in what orderPolishing, washing, taking apart: a few seconds are enough to destroy a piece's value. How to identify, preserve and sell an inheritance.
Collecting Cold War military documents (1947-1991)
Paper is the cheapest and most documentary part of the period. Circulating in numbers are French individual service books and mobilisation booklets, the Soviet military cards every conscript kept for life, East German service books, leave passes, mission orders and travel warrants. Alongside these named pieces comes service literature: technical manuals, operating regulations, weapon handbooks and training notes, printed in tens of thousands of copies, so inexpensive, but useful for identifying equipment or dating an issue.
The case of maps
Cartography forms a family of its own. The Soviet general staff's topographic service mapped almost all the world's land at medium scales, and Europe down to the most detailed scales, on sheets carrying a classification marking; the break-up of depots after 1991 put many into circulation. A sheet is read in its margin: year of compilation, year of revision, producing service and sheet numbering all appear there. It is one of the few documents of the period whose dating requires no expertise.
Authenticating by consistency
Authentication rests on internal consistency. A service book that was really used shows several hands and several inks, stamps applied at distant dates and so unevenly worn, folds and yellowing that are even through the whole thickness. The common fake is not a document made from scratch but a blank example, available by the box, filled in afterwards in the name of a unit that sells: airborne troops, formations stationed in Berlin, specialist services. A crisp stamp and a single hand on paper that is otherwise soiled should stop the purchase. A complete named group, service book, photographs and effects of one man, is worth far more than the sum of its parts: splitting it destroys its value.