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For my niece & nephew:

 

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For my niece & nephew:

 

Here's a few from my Wurtsmith Air Force Base collection.

Cunningham # MI310g


Cunningham # MI310f (I actually have two of these):


Cunningham # MI310l


I have a ten cent version of the above token but no picture.

Wurtsmith had a long and interesting legacy and it's something I was researching quite a bit. It's said Wurtsmith was a victim of it's own success and was closed 15 June 1993. Wurtsmith got it's start in 1923 as a soft landing field for Selfridge AFB and a place location for winter maneuvers. I don't want to go to much into it right now, but essentially the location of Wurtsmith was decided on when a Lieutenant went fishing with his brother in-law who mentioned their fishing spot would be a great place for a base. The Lieutenant went and told his commander, who then grabbed his deputy commander, hopped in a motorcycle with a side car and sped off to the location. The commander agreed it would be a great place, and the site was selected. Conditions there were awful in the early years. Aircraft maintainers would have to heat oil over open pit fires in order to service the aircraft - a far cry from today's ultra-safety environment. Lots of interesting history with this base, and it's something I want to write an article about.

 

Speaking of Selfridge, It being with in 2 miles or less of where I live, Other than being named after the first airman to die in a crash, and being high on the nuc target list for the soviets because of the SAC planes based there.
Do you know what it also had as a singular distinction of being the only one in the world?
Instead of playing 20 questions I will cut the suspense short and just tell!
It was the only airport/airbase in the world that the air traffic controllers also had to be called by trains crossing the end of the runway, as some of the fly boys would be coming in low. (Weekend warriors mostly in the last 30 or so years) Both the Grand Trunk coal trains delivering to the power plants on base. And there was a small rail/transit museum that stored and operated on the trackage on the base. I was a operating member of the train museum, It use to freak out the people on the train when we would be approaching the runway at the same time as a large tanker would be coming in for a landing or even more impressive taking off.

Now that you have jogged my memory about the tokens for the mess, and clubs. I will have to be on the look out for them.
When I was with the museum in the mid seventies, the wife of the warrant officer that ran the clubs on base was an operating member of the train museum. She was another show stopper, for people driving along the roads next to the tracks. To see a blonde with long flowing air, hanging out the window of the locomotive signaling for a crossing. In her engineers overalls, hat and red bandana!

 

Very cool! I have one from Selfridge...no pic right now, but I'll get it up. Several early bases were named after fallen airmen of the pre WWI days and they even talk about a curse that befell winners of a particular air race from the early days of aviation. I'm going to have to look at the list again and see how many had bases named after them and how many tokens I have from those bases. I have nearly 270 Air Force trade tokens! Just got done cataloging them all...what an undertakingn.

Osan had a train that came on it many years ago. Think Cannon AFB did too, but not crossing the runway!

 

McChord does but the train goes to Ft. Lewis. I got caught by that train plenty of times!

 

With the tightening of security after 911 they closed the access to the base for the museum. As we used to open the gate at the back of the base in the woods. It only had one Canadian National/Grand Truck switch pad lock on the gate. And would leave it open for the whole time we were giving rides on Sunday. They converted the heating power plants to natural gas and the Trunk stopped going on to the base, and the Air Force no longer had use of their 44 ton GE switcher and gave that to the museum and let them use the old engine house. But as small groups of hobbyists tend to do they had some disagreements with a high ranking base officer about the equipments condition,looks etc that was used as storage etc.
Well self important people found out the guys with the gold colored bird dropping on those blue uniforms, really do have ya by the short hairs! they were kicked off the base

 

Aw that's a bummer.

 

Well I got out of the museum before that happened, It was becoming a second full time and half job, and it stopped being fun. But when you are playing in somebody's else sand box you got to play by their rules!

 

This evening’s token is from Vance Air Force Base (VAFB), Oklahoma, and is my first from this installation.



From VAFB’s beginning and to the present day, the mission has been to train pilots to fly. In 1941 land was leased from the city of Enid and construction began for the yet unnamed base, and it activated on 21 Nov the same year. Referred to initially as Air Corps Basic Flying School, Enid, Oklahoma, it wasn’t until 11 February 1942 it was named the Enid Army Flying School (also known as Woodring Field) then a few months later as Enid Army Air Field. Throughout World War Two Enid Army Flying School graduated 8,169 students from its basic phase of training and another 826 from the advanced training school. With the decreased demand for pilots after the War, the installation was deactivated 2 July 1945 and transferred a year later to the Army Corps of Engineers (my sources conflict with this, it may have been as late as 31 July 1947).



With the Air Force being newly established in 1947 plans were made to make permanent bases on some WWII sites. Enid Army Flying School was reopened as a permanent facility on 26 August 1948, taking the name Enid Air Force Base, though this was not to last. Following a long standing tradition of naming installations after fallen airmen, Enid was renamed 9 July 1949 to Vance Air Force Base in honor of Lt Col Leon Robert Vance, Jr., a native of Enid who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action.



Lt Col Vance’s story is pretty incredible and he survived only to go missing on his return trip to the States for further treatment of his injuries and to be fitted with a prosthetic foot. Below is from the official website of Vance AFB, it gives a summary but they omitted a few details:

“On 5 June 1944, Lt Col Vance led the 489th Bombardment Group in an attack against defended enemy positions over the coast of France. His aircraft was hit with severe anti-aircraft fire which seriously crippled the B-24, killed the pilot, and wounded several members of the crew, including Vance, whose right foot was nearly severed off. Despite his injury, and with three of the four engines lost, he led his formation over the target and bombed it successfully.
With only one engine, Lt Col Vance flew to the English coast, whereupon he ordered everyone to bail out. When Lt Col Vance believed one crewmember could not jump due to injuries, he decided to ditch the crippled bomber in the English Channel to give the man a chance to survive. To add further to the danger of ditching the ship, a 500-pound bomb remained hung up in the bomb bay. In the water, the aircraft started to sink rapidly with Vance pinned in the cockpit by a turret which had collapsed during landing. As the plane was settling beneath the waves an explosion threw Vance clear of the wreckage.”



The article above failed to mention Vance was pinned down in such a way that he could only see out of a side window of the aircraft, that he and another crewman tied a tourniquet around his leg to slow the bleeding, that B-24s generally didn’t survive ditching efforts, and that after the sinking aircraft exploded Vance swam for 50 minutes in the English Channel before being rescued.

From 26 August 1948 to 1 November 1972 the 3575th Pilot Training Wing was the host unit and was to provide pilot training in multi-engine aircraft as well as maintaining and operating the base. Through the Cold War the types of schooling provided and the aircraft changed, but the mission remained the same. On 1 November 1972 the 71st was activated and took command of the base and its mission and is still the tenant unit.



Today VAFB trains student pilots in three different types of aircraft, depending on what type of aircraft they’ll fly as graduates. VAFB has students and instructors from all branches and boasts 32,995 total pilot wings awarded since 1941.

 

So I am out in a hot dusty dry place right now and instead of coins they have AAFES "pogs" in 5c, 10c, and 25c denominations. I was wondering if there was any interest in this stuff at all. I guess they are the MPC of the modern era. I've found some being sold on ebay but not a lot of information on the web; at least none that is current. I've been keeping all of the different ones I have come across and have about $9 face value of different pogs. It lets me keep the collecting bug going while I am away from home. Just wondering if anyone here had any interest in these things besides me.

 

POGs you say?

 

Nice, I have a few of those

 

Yes there is a book or two on them currently I can't remember the names of them right now.Also they do come up on other forums from time to time. I think it is a case of a some what limited access for the general collector/dealers. And the people in areas that are serving may have other things on their minds. They find them after they are back and might out out of the service.
When I was in the navy back in Nam, I wish I had tought about picking up bags full of the Japaneses arcade tokens and such. But hindsight is 20-20

By the way thank you and everybody else that is currently enlisted for your service.

 

If you remember those books, please let me know! They're briefly mentioned in one of my MPC books, but as far as print goes, that's all I have.

 

Will do!
Was trying to find it but nothing so far
But these were interesting
http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDispl...afes-necessity-becomes-collectible-craze.aspx

http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v16n09a20.html

 

Still on my occasional series on what I picked up on my Europe trip ... three are German medals, all modern, plus the papal medal that was probably marketed it. I got it, like most, in Kiel, but I found German medals all over eastern Europe (and no, not Nazi stuff. I didn't see any of that). I found the Erhard medal interesting as it commemorates a rather obscure chancellor, but still worth someone striking a medal over the centennial of his birth. The reverse, with the 16 German state shields making up the German eagle, is interesting as Erhard never exercised any jurisdiction over five and a portion of them, the ones in East Germany.

Since medal-striking seems to be common in Germany, I tried to get some idea of how they are marketed. The internet wasn't much luck, and while there, I went into various stores looking (it's easy to look for medals, they will almost always be near the cash register). No luck. I did see, in Warnemunde, Germany, posted inside an antique shop, what looked like information sheets on two medals, but there was a language barrier and I didm't feel comfortable with photographing them (they were in a dark area of the shop anyway)

 

A Concise Catalog of U.S. Military Payment Certificates - (2012) - Carlson R. Chamblis. This book introduces the collector to the world of Military Payment Certificates (MPCs) with a complete reference guide that includes a catalog numbering system, notes printed and condition premium pricing. Chapters include details on Specimen notes, MPC Errors, Voided MPCS, Counterfeits, Replicas, Replacements and POGs of the AAFES.