... the sincerest form of flattery???!!!

[Greg Collins]

This is interesting... where have we seen this design before? Hmmmmm. By the way, and though I did several designs for the struggle in Ireland, this isn't one of mine. I may get it just to have it as an interesting footnote in the collection.

[Citizen Soldier]

Very interesting! Tiocfaidh ár lá

Very interesting. You seen many more of those pins? Were they manufactured with the DDR government's official consent?

[Knuckles930]

I don't think the DDR would find it to funny, if a wester country used it. But thats just my guess.

[Greg Collins]

This is the only pin I've seen that is so blatantly a rip-off of another design. When I was doing Irish pins I did use the historic Starry Plough (the plough with stars arranged on it) on a red background (square for the IRSCNA and star for general use), but I was very upfront during the creation of these designs, and the finished product was for a specific political party's use.

I believe the DDR would approve of the pin; in fact, I believe if either the IRA or the IRSP had requested the pins, the DDR would have made the pins for them. The DDR was known to lend support to such causes.

[torstenbel]

This is interesting... where have we seen this design before? Hmmmmm. By the way, and though I did several designs for the struggle in Ireland, this isn't one of mine. I may get it just to have it as an interesting footnote in the collection.

maybe, this is not the right forum but could you show us some of your own designs?

[Greg Collins]

Weird things happened between then and now... my old hard drive crashed; had it replaced; now the old RAM is in some kind of conflict with the new hard drive- in the process, I lost all the old artwork. BUT, as a couple of the designs went all the way to production, I do have a patch and a few pins lying around which I will photograph and post shortly.

Yes, I agree this may not be the right place, so if the moderator wants to move it that would be fine with me.

[Greg Collins]

Here are a few pins. The pin depicting Dr. Guevarra (Che) was done for the company itself (Sambar- Australia), the pin with the blue surround was done for the Republican Socialist Youth Movement in Ireland and depicts Patsy O'Hara- one of the 10 hunger strikers who died in H-block in the 70's (most of the focus was on Bobby Sands); the other 3 were done for the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America (Seamus Costello was the most famous leader of the IRSP prior to his assassination).

[torstenbel]

Hi greg, thanks for showing your badges. Incidentally, I think that the DDR would have been quite happy to endorse and make the badge first shown in this thread. Cheers, Torsten.

[Greg Collins]

An interesting side bit here... you'll notice the flag depicted in Citizen Soldier's avatar. This is the Starry Plough flag as carried by James Connolly's Irish Republican Brotherhood in the Easter Uprising of 1916. V.I. Lenin stated that Connolly's was the first Red Army. Soon after, the Plough, along with a hammer, was placed in a star and used as the first hat badge of the Soviet Red Army. I've always wondered if there was a connection.