I recently exchanged emails with Vickie "troughsc" regarding her neverending supply of these worthless fake "Chaplain Crosses" and found it to be both funny and idiotic. Vickie states "My husband began picking them up in the 70's when he was stationed at Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg", and "My husband says that he never paid more than $5 to $15 a piece for them in all of his years of collecting" and finally "These were private purchase items, not military issue".
Of course this ignores the fact that after the war tons of fake war relics flooded the market to capitalize on the worlds desire to collect artifacts from the war. Even today you can visit Berlin and see hundreds of fake "war relics" for sale on the streets. By troughsc's own admission, these were never issued to Chaplains in WW2. So it's odd how she gives such specifics as to the origin of each cross in her listings and attributes them in detail to certain units?
I've also included hilarious emails from her wheras she details everything she knows about this website, none of which is actually true; and she does admit oldtownch sells fakes from Bulgaria, though she denies he promotes them as being WW2 relics despite the fact each and every listing of oldtownch begins with "Vintage WW2" (maybe she's blind, I didn't ask).
As to the truth about these crosses, they are simply Catholic crosses; some new, some not so new. The skull and bones feature on them has zero connection to WW2, Germany, or the SS. These crosses can be purchased cheaply on various sites as being simply a Catholic cross. The fobs connected to them are 100% fake and were not made during the war, in Germany, nor carried by any military unit. Most such fobs come from Bulgaria.
