Need German translator please
 

I am not what one would consider a real ’history buff ‘ but I do enjoy auctions and estate sales which hold the possibility of finding some interesting piece of the past (think ...Antiques Road Show).

Here are another couple of interesting “finds” from a recent estate sale I attended:

In 1934 the Nationalist Socialist (or Nazi) Party won the election in Germany. This is a pin/badge from that era:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1226506758.jpg

It is about the size of a silver dollar, is stamped metal (with a sort of copper/bronze like appearance). At the top it reads: Tag Der Arbeit. The features are a man’s head and below that an eagle with hammer and sickle. The Nazi swastika and the date 1934.

On the back:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1226506826.jpg

are two soldering points where the (missing) clasp/pin attached. Stamped along the lower edge is what appears to be: Reihsverand and Pforzheim No 5. Those two words are very small and obscured and I may have a couple of the letters wrong (?). They are tiny and difficult to read.

I am not having any luck with online translators. Can anyone assist me in what this badge says? Are the words in back the manufacturer? Plant?

Thanks in advance.
_________________________

I also collect/re-sell the occasional old book and I purchased a copy titled:
“Dictionary of the Bible” (copyright 1868)

Note: If you are also a garage sale/ auction enthusiast, after acquiring ANY books (especially old bibles!) always turn the book, (binding up) and ruffle the pages several times.

From this book …out dropped the following:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1226506983.jpg

It’s an admission ticket to the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago. It is in pristine condition (with just some very slight discoloration). What I find so interesting is the fine details of the tickets from that era. These were in fact, printed by the American Bank Note Co., New York.

The back:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1226507044.jpg

Marked: “Good for one Admission“ and additional detailed art work.

... back to my ‘page ruffling’ suggestion. People use various things for ‘bookmarks’. You never know what you may find in old books and especially in old family bibles. I have found: recipes, letters, a One Dollar Silver Certificate, a letter signed by E. A. Poe Jr., the above ticket …etc.

Happy hunting.

Pforzheim is a town...near Stuttgart I believe
Tag der Arbeit..work day...day of work..
Reisverhand..like our local district #..

Rika

My guess is the word is "Reichsverband", which is a way of identifying workers in a particular district—in this case Pforzheim No.5.

In other words, this was a pin awarded to the workers in Reichsverband Pforzheim No.5 on the occasion of the National Day of Work.

Something Helmut could pin on his blue cap when he went to the brick factory each day.

That makes sense. But what is fasinating is the hammer and sickle on the same pin as the swastika in 1934. I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean the Soviet Union, and the National Socialist Party was still making nods toward the socialist part of their name in 1934. Still, there must be more to the story.

In Germany the hammer and sickle in this context were (and still are) very common symbols for industry and agriculture respectively. You see them frequently on guild regalia and the like.

Their use here on a "workers" pin is appropriate and obvious. I don't think there was any connection to the Soviet Union implied in this.

That's a good point. The Soviet Union appropriated the hammer and sickle because they were symbols of farm and industrial labor; the symbols didn't become associated with labor because of the Soviets. It's just hard, sometimes, to look back at symbols like that that have developed an independent association from this end of the historical telescope and remember where they came from without thinking about it a bit.

Tag Der Arbeit is May 1st - May Day - international worker's day, labor day, however you want to call it. May Day was adopted by the Nazis - it has been around since the late 1800s in Germany.

George

Interesting, about the town/district, since that lettering is on the back and is not displayed.

Thanks for the quick replies.

And did you all know that the swastika is an old American Indian symbol? Found on many Arizona/New Mexico locations.

eeh, not American Indian, Indian Indian
Sanskrit

Sorry Stijn,

But American Indians had it too. I'd have to do a quick search to prove it, but I remember it well.

It seems that the swastika is a "common" design element throughout the world, and as an architect, we learned/studied it as a "perfect" dynamic design. One just has to get over the association with the Nazis (after all they bombed my homeland also), and look at it as a square, with the center cross, and then you take out the alternating half-sides, and you have a swastika.

One of our design assignments was to study different permutations of the swastika, though its pure shape is still the most dynamic (it seems to rotate around the center) shape you can design.

The spiral would be the other, even more dynamic shape.

Okay, so I did a quick search in Wikipedia, and there are 24 pages on this subject.

You'll note that the American Indians such as Ohio, Hopi, Naavajo, and even the Kina people of Panama, used the swastika.

I did not mean that they "invented" it, or named it, just that they used it, for the reasons I mention in my previous post. Its etymology is clear, as is its geometry.

"There is nothing new under the sun".

well, you said, "it's an old American Indian symbol", that's a pretty definitive statement as to it's origin, which kinda is odd since the name itself is from Sanskrit.
Sure they had it in many places, but none as widespread as India

The swastika is often used to identify Buddhist Temples on maps. Due to the unfortunate connection with nazi's, the left facing form is more widely used.