Grizzly Relic

[Clark Badgett]

Re: Grizzly Relic

One of my childhood friend's father brought home full tobacco bag of gold filled Japanese teeth from WW2. This man's mother threw them into the outhouse because he had desicrated bodies. This was confirmed by both the man's younger brother and sister. The younger brother would later serve in the Korean War and told me an interesting story of discovering a buried pot of Kimchi at one point.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Momento mori

Hallo!

IMHO, the Germans have nothing over the Koreans when it comes to pickled cabbage...

:)

Seriously, there can be fascination and attraction if not fixation with the things that almost kill you.

On the other side of the same coin are the saved momentoes that saved one's life such as Lt. George Dixon's legendary gold coin, and numeorus examples of bullet struck pocket watches and pocket bibles, etc., etc.

Curt
Deep in the kimchi pots Mess

[Milliron]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Nah, the "grizzliest" relic I've EVER seen is in the Atlanta History Museum Center.

It's a little curio a Confederate soldier carved for his sweetheart to be sent back home. Except that it's made out of bone from that soldiers own leg, after it was amputated. The soldier died from his wounds, if I remember correctly.

How'd you like to get that in the mail?

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Grizzly Relic

It's been several years since I saw the helmet several years ago in an antique store. The size of the ventilator/mounting lugs sticks out in my mind as being larger than those helmets manufactured in the late 30s and into the war years, but my memory is beginning to fail me. I know I wanted to buy it, but they wanted $600 or $700 for it, and being in college/married/supporting a civil war habit put that kind of money way out of my range.

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Hello,
About 5 years ago I was in a relic Shop in Antietam that had a person's hand in it . The store was closed and the old man would only open the store by appointment. The story goes it belonged to a soldier whose hand was blown off by a artillery shell and was picked up on the battle field. The hand was very small looking to me .I thought it was a ladies hand compared to mine, but it was mummified and 140years ago???
Also in the Guy's shop was a collection of weapons with all the accoutrements and bullets. The lead bullets were corroding apart in the cases . There was no heat and air control at all in the building .

[Gallinipper]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Speaking of Civil War curiousity shops, there's a neat one in Kennesaw, GA. You can't miss it, it's located right on the main drag. Be sure to ask for "Wildman". :D

[unclefrank]

Re: Grizzly Relic

I remember seeing a photo of a WWI German helmet that had been shot through and still had brains stuck to the insides. Ewwwwwwwwww!

[Rmhisteach]

Re: Grizzly Relic

I enjoyed looking at the pic. I could not help but think of a former boss of mine who had a picture of a mangled car that he had been in and survived . Each of these serves as a marker to the person to remeber how blessed they are to have life .

[PanzerJager]

Re: Grizzly Relic

I've seen a human skull on display at a creepy junk store in Ohio. It had the words "Old Hun" painted on it and the owner of the shop said his grand father sent it home as a joke during WWI. Could have been a fake but it looked legit; still had bits of dry flesh and hair on it. Now THIS is a morbid relic.

This reminds me of photos I saw about a year ago with a similar "relic". A ww2 marine vet passed away and the family sold his foot locker full of stuff to a collector. The collector was digging through and at the bottom found a skull. The skull was painted with a slogan something along the lines of "made in japan, tested at Okinawa, rejected by the USMC". A friend of mine who is a big pacific theater collector, who had the rifle mentioned previously with the shrapnel and the pieces of ID disc stuck in has come across more then skull brought back by pacific vets in foot lockers and duffel bags. Skulls where not an uncommon souvenir for the pacific theater vets.

One of my childhood friend's father brought home full tobacco bag of gold filled Japanese teeth from WW2.

The same collector mentioned above has a bag of teeth with gold fillings a marine vet gave him as a kid.

Regards,

[GarrettG1993]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Does anyone here subscribe to America's Civil War Magazine? They have a section in the back of every issue called Struck, there have been some really interesting artifacts in there. From a cut down Confederate Potsdam musket with a Federal bayonet run through the stock, to a peice of a Federal soldiers skull with the minie ball that killed him (interesting story actually; he was shot through the eye at Fredricksburg, survived without loosing the eye, went to a hospital in Washington where it looked like he would recover, however he developed an infection and died, about a month after being shot.)


Regards,
Garrett Glover

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Grizzly Relic

William Ruffin Cox's jacket. 2nd NC. Wound and surgeon's cuts.


http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/MOH/vfp...ABASE=83614495,
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/MOH/vfp...ABASE=83614495,
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/MOH/vfp...ABASE=83614495,
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/MOH/vfp...ABASE=83614495,

[WILSONCREEK61]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Well, there no way you can say that this man didn't see 'the Elephant'

[ndnchf]

Re: Grizzly Relic

I remember reading somewhere that after the war, General Sickles' leg bone was on display in a museum. Periodically he would go visit the museum and be photographed with his leg, much to the delight of other visitors.

Steve Blancard
13th VA Co. A

[Dalton]

Re: Grizzly Relic

I kind of like the medallion.

Dalton Eubanks

[John E. Tobey]

Re: Grizzly Relic

Years ago I bought a collection of letters from a soldier in the 109th NY. The soldier was an inveterate dispatcher of momentos: pressed flowers, pieces of tent, uniform cloth, etc.. Imagine my surprise when I upended one fat envelope and out popped the top of a human cranium. The letter says "piece of rebel skull."

I've always been disturbed by relics like these. It's one thing to retain pieces of one's own body, but quite another to collect pieces of fallen foes. In my younger days I naively supposed that this practice was limited to uncivilized or relatively modern warriors, after all, we've all heard about shrunken heads, scalps, gold teeth and ear collections. I reckoned that Civil War soldiers were above this, but unfortunately that does not appear to be the case.

John Tobey