What a beauty, my first original Border plaque!

[Soviet]

It is like Christmas today 1 1/2 month in advance. I'm happy to add this original Border plaque to my collection. It comes from the inner German border between Bavaria (Franken) and Thuringia.

It was stolen in 1984 near the Bavarian city Neustadt bei Coburg.

I want to thank personnaly the forum members who help me to find this one and which help me in regards of the originality of the border plaque.

I was suppose to buy an other one at the same time, but I won't get it because the eBay member who wanted to sell it to me was suspended from eBay for fraud on my auction.

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Close-up on the DDR wappen.

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The obverse

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Side by side with my mysterious DDR plaque. I do not know if these were used during DDR time. The only thing I know is that these were not border plaques. There are 2 possibilities.<o></o>
<o></o>
Whether they are Border plaque copies or they were used for another purpose. Maybe they were used on casern or official buildings. No idea.<o></o>

[Soviet]

And the reverse.

[jon m.]

Great Buy !

Now all you need is the actual concrete obelisk that this went on!
Jon.

[Soviet]

Great Buy !

Now all you need is the actual concrete obelisk that this went on!
Jon.

I wonder what the shipping would cost.

Checkpoint Charlie last summer :

[Garulfo]

Nice find Bryan, I need one !

[RedBaran11]

Damn, I want one of these plaques

Great find!

[olivyaya]

It is like Christmas today 1 1/2 month in advance. I'm happy to add this original Border plaque to my collection. It comes from the inner German border between Bavaria (Franken) and Thuringia.

It was stolen in 1984 near the Bavarian city Neustadt bei Coburg.

I want to thank personnaly the forum members who help me to find this one and which help me in regards of the originality of the border plaque.

I was suppose to buy an other one at the same time, but I won't get it because the eBay member who wanted to sell it to me was suspended from eBay for fraud on my auction.

A very nice one indeed Bryan, I am glad you eventually managed to get yourself an original one !! Also great you know the short story about it... I tried to get the story of mine but the seller never answered...
Can you tell us more about this German seller being suspended on ebay ? How did this eventually happen ? Did you complain as I advised you ? What happened next ? I think this can be very interesting for us, especially when trying to spot cheating on auctions.
Your nice pictures made me feel like shooting some more of my plaque... I tried to shoot the same angles to make comparison easier...

[Dallasfan]

Hi Bryan

You are a lucky B*****D to find something nice as this
I'm happy for you.


Regards , Johan

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More information about my plaque. The seller says it comes from his uncle which was already 80 when he picked up the plaque. He said he was often taking a walk with a friend along the border and knew what was the "routine" of the Grenztruppen. Neustadt bei Coburg was directly at the border. On the other side was Sonneberg in Thuringia. So that's it, I don't know more, except that it seems that the plaque was cleaned by the very first owner.

Concerning the other auction, I asked the seller if she had a Buy it now price. She said she would like to have 300 EUR. I said it was too much for me and that I saw other sold at 200-225 EUR. So I said that I would try to win the auction. I bided on it at the last minute and I won it by 1 EUR. Because I was too stupid to say how much the last one sold, the previous bidder put a bid of 224.99 EUR.

So I was then sure there was a cheat on the auction, I looked through the old auctions from that seller and saw the same bidder on many of the seller's auction which were all not related. I have then complained that the auction was artificially raised, hoping that the bid of the previous bidder would be erased.

Ebay suspended the seller for shill bidding, but didn't cancel the previous bid. Ebay said they prefer to stay neutral and the said it was up to me to complete or not the transaction. Because the seller wasn't taking PayPal, a wire transfer would have protected me in Canada if the seller decided to don't ship the plaque. Also, when I first received the invoice from the seller, she was asking 80 EUR shipping for Canada! Only to get her 300 EUR. So I couldn't agree with these terms of transaction and we have both decided to stop our transaction. Too bad as the other plaque was really interesting as well.

After the end of my previous auction, this plaque was for sale at a buy it now price and also with the same price my previous auction finished. So I jump on this one.

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Olivier I love the salty look of your plaque!

"Dans son jus" !!!

I wonder why you don't have any holes in it. It seems there was, but these are filled up of something.

Olivier, please look at you PM on your forum.

[olivyaya]

Olivier I love the salty look of your plaque!

"Dans son jus" !!!

I wonder why you don't have any holes in it. It seems there was, but these are filled up of something.

Olivier, please look at you PM on your forum.

Yes, it's "dans son jus" as we say in French ... the holes aren filled with concrete !
I have answered with PM !

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I've got a new friend for my lonely plaque.

Not much patina on my new one (on the left), but still very nice.