I noticed that the old news began to be cut off due to a page size limit on Yahoo-Geocities. I've rescued what I could from July 1999 on. This archive of information is from July 1999 to June 2000. I will begin Archive Number Two before I do this again.
June 27, 2000:Singapore may have a new submarine badge. They now have three submarines being converted and in training in Sweden. Up until now they wore the Swedish submarine badge but apparently they have released their own badge. I do not have one yet but I am working on them. Here is a scan of what they look like: Singapore.
I have two spare cloth embroidered German badges (white and black) and a British badge available to trade. Drop me a line if you need them.
June 18, 2000:On the 16th. I forgot to include the cloth Turkish conscript variants for junior personnel (second grade is already on the site- these are basic and first grade) and an officer cloth piece. Turkish conscript and officer cloth.
Here are two Indonesian cloth badges that were on ebay (I did not win the auctions): Officer. Enlisted.June 16, 2000:It's been two months since I updated this. I acquired a few South American pieces (mess dress Colombian, two current Peruvuan cloth and an obsolete Peruvian cloth). I put together a composite of my Colombian badges and the three Peruvian cloth items. Colombian Composite. Peruvian Cloth.April 15, 2000:Lee Lacey, with the help of Eric Swendsboe, has created a new version of US dolphins that he has termed "littoral" dolphins due to the shallow bow wave in front of the submarine. Bill Crosby and I politicked strongly that they be termed "low-rider" dolphins since they had a low-rider look to them.
They are Lacey's creation, but you can decide what you want to call them. I kind of like them, especially the gold one. They have a very art deco look to them and will appeal to those of you who might have plaques and other memorabilia created years ago overseas that depict a similar looking set of dolphins. Check with Lee on how to get some at seawolf@azalea.net.
March 17, 2000:I obtained a nice set of Greek sub patches from Simsirikis Angelos over in Greece. He is serving on S112, the 209 class submarine named TRITON. They are from his sub plus the Papanikolis, Glafkos, Protfs and Amfitriti. Click to see them. For fun, I also had to add the Disney Submarine Voyage ride pin and a 1 oz. silver sub coin I picked up a month or two ago. Disney pin Silver sub coin. February 20, 2000: I was listing a few items on Ebay last night to get rid of some of my eternal traders. In doing so I, linked a few jpegs to my website server and I realized I had promised a few guys that I would update my Other Links page. I did so this morning. If you were supposed to be added and weren't, let me know. I deleted all the links I know of that did not work, too. I also added a little information here and there. Check it out.
January 1, 2000: Happy new millennium! I'm watching some bowl games after a trip out for a late lunch, so I thought I'd do a little update while I watch football. I mounted, photographed and scanned my US collection. The quality of the photographs are fair; I guess I should have removed the glass from the cases before taking the photos. I think they are presentable. The first is a panel of all standard dolphins. All are metal, in gold, silver and subdued. Some are bright finished, some are antique/pewter finished. The second photo shows patrol insignia (SSBN and combat), supply, medical and EDO dolphins, US Subvets pins, DBF pins and some of the infamous bush dolphins. The last photo is a shot of cloth dolphins. Scan one- regular dolphins Scan two- assorted dolphins Scan three- cloth dophins Word document with listings of manufacturers of the US pins in the three scansDecember 21, 1999:I have a little news to tell you all this month. I got a few miniature Israeli safety pin backed badges in. Click for miniature Israeli jpeg. This is an official badges. I expect some mini senior Israeli badges shortly. They are not official but look nice. I got a few more Russian pins which I have not scanned. I have some new Greek cloth insignia coming and got an old Greek cloth. Click for new Greek cloth. I also got some 5 and 10 year Danish pins; click to see them. I also got another German subvet lapel pin and a French Amethyst lapel pin. Neither have been scanned yet. I have a couple of sets of Poles to trade along with the mini Israelis and Greek cloth.
November 28, 1999:I am testing out Word documents in html. I am not a primo computer programmer; I blunder through as best I can. What I have always wanted to do was have a map that you could click on to get images of sub insignia or information. Someday I'll get there. In the meantime, here's a map of South America that shows which countries operate submarines. South America Map November 13, 1999:It hardly seems like 6 months have gone by since the last militaria show at the Inland Expo Center in Chicago. This will be the last "Midwest Militaire" Show held there. I think the center is being torn down because the show is moving closer to Chicago next April. I did not find a lot of unknown treasures there, but I did get a lot of Russian badges.
First off, I picked up a one of the gold obsolete Yugoslavian badges from Alan Beckman of Fox Militaria. I saw him selling one on ebay, and was able to get one at the same price as the high bidder. Rather than have it shipped, I met up with Alan at the show today. Click here to see the pre-1970 Yugoslavian Officer badge
The next thing I picked up was a variant of the US Engineering Duty Officer mess dress badge. Nothng exciting, just another (unknown) manufacturer compared to what I had. Click here for the mess dress EDO badge
I also found a guy selling a "Hunt For Red October" Russian sub badge. Don Palen at ICBM.com has had them, but I never saw one in an official package. Click here to see it
My next purchase was 26 badges from Alex and Igor Bzokhman. I have enough to fill up a third glassed board now. Click to see them
My last purchase was a few glassed boards to mount some more of my collection. Not too exciting there. One thing I did do after I got home and scanned the new stuff was to scan a few other recent items. First are 3 photos of my collection: Germany (one) and Russia (two). They are a bit better than the Russian scans I did a while back.
Germany Russia (part one) Russia (part two)
I scanned the other unmounted Russian badges I have, a German WWII Shipyard Worker stick pin I picked up, and a German Subvets stick pin I traded for.
Other Russian badges Shipyard pin Subvets
The last thing I scanned was membership materials I received from the Submariners Club in St. Petersburg. I am now an official member, as you can see from this: click for club passbook and pin. I also got a brochure and a postcard of the Typhoon Class SSBN.
It's all here. Soon it will be included in the appropriate pages within my site.
October 20, 1999:The gold Colombians with sharks are in. I have four left. The scan is not too great, but it gives you an idea of what they are like. I want to get rid of them, so make me a good trade offer!
Click for gold Colombian shark badge. I also still have two silver Colombian shark badges left from the second batch I got. I will sell them off if I can't find any trades. Drop me a line at sub_insignia@geocities.com or leave me a note on my guest book.
September 19, 1999:I added some details to my note from 9/8/99 today. I got 4 more of the silver Colombian pins with sharks in (let's get some trade offers to me) and a new General Dynamics Electric Boat silver Trident submarine logo. Click for the Trident logo. I also added Al Phillips' book to the reference book link on the index and I added some German WWII cap badge information to my Germany page. Lastly, the new gold Russian pin on the opening index page now has a proper ID on it.
September 8, 1999:I received 4 more Russian badges yesterday. The first is for the 19th. Division of the Northern Fleet (Yankee Class Boomers). It was established in 1969 and disbanded in 1992. There is also the logo of the First SSN Flotilla, the new Akula Class SSN Tiger (named after one of the old Russian submarines from the "beast" division of subs in the early part of this century), and a submarine communications group pin. Here they are:Click to view. September 4, 1999:I got 16 old style enlisted Colombian shark badges. They are all gone but I may be able to get more. I asked if they could find some officer ones, too. Hopefully they will be available. Colombian Enlisted Pin.
Lee Lacey sent me some scans of his Imperial Yugoslavian (actually Kingdom of Serbs and Croats) Sub Badge and his three original Austro Hungarian badges. Imperial Yugoslavian. Austro Hungarians.
I also saw a nice Russian Typhoon that a fellow in Pennsylvania got from another fellow in Finland. Here it is: Typhoon Badge.July 25, 1999: My Donitz and U-Boat cap badges finally arrived and are all gone. I am assured I can get more (quicker, too). The Donitz badge is on my Germany page. here are the cap badges: Click for cap badges. I have some Israeli badges coming if anyone needs some. Drop me a line!
July 11, 1999: I added the other half of my Russian pin collection. The quality is not great but they are all there. Click here to see it, visit my Russia section or my photo page:
July 5, 1999: Today's addition to the country sections are in Ecuador and Israel. I added a four-pin composite of the Ecuadoran badges (no, 1, 2 and 3 star versions) and a composite of my Israeli badges (since an Internet friend or two from over there keeps telling me that I can use their jpeg file to display the current badge and I keep telling them I have several badges but have just been remiss in scanning them). You can view them under the appropriate country or preview them here:
As you can see, I need an unoffical miniature and an official obsolete senior Israeli pin (and mess dress Ecuadoran pins).
I also forgot to mention on my last update that the links had a little revision. My cyber-submarine friend Ronen from Israel has a wonderful personal page and you can view it via my other links. Also listed is Uri Dotar's sub page, which is becoming the "official" page of the Isra
