December 30, 2020 - Droog Magazine periodical for investigative journalism

The Hitler Forgery Industry

to Hitler (main page) | to Certificates of Authenticity


Jerry Swallow

Introduction |

By Bart FM Droog

The strange business of selling fakes, forgeries and other concoctions attributed to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and other Nazis.

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Introduction: Jerry Swallow

Jerry Swallow, date unknown.	Jerry Swallow, 2012. Still from trailer "This is my friend Herry".

One of the 'Certificates of Authenticity' issuers to obvious forged Hitleriana and Nazi Militaria is a tattoo artist known as "Jerry Swallow, a.k.a. "Sailor Jerry Swallow". He owns SJS Militaria, New Glasgow N.S., Canada.

Mr. Swallow states on his website:

"I have been collecting WWII items since the 1950. (…) By 1960, l had started to trade and sell to other collectors. (…) Over a long period i have dealt with many very fine people and dealers, and in the early 1970,s i would find things for other collectors and dealers, such as Manions, ZM Military, Globe International, Mohawk Arms, and many more in North America and a few dealers in Europe. In my years of finding and collecting, i have found some very fine and rare items, from Hermann Goering standard to Personal items of Adolf Hitler, and other high rank Third Reich personalities.”

The above seems to be a mixture of some elements of truth and a lot of concoctions. Facts are:

Jerry Swallow is active in the trade of Nazi Militaria since at least 2012, as these screenshots from his twitter account prove:





In 2016 he issued a number of CoAs to Nazi Militaria and Memorabilia objects, including alleged Hitler artwork, offered by the auction house Regency Superior, St. Louis, Missouri (USA). According to Swallow, many of the objects originated from a "Major General Heinrich Jurs from the Waffen SS". 

On International Military Antiques (ca. 2019):

"It was from the Collection of a well-known German WAFFEN SS GENERAL HEINRICH JURS, who enjoyed close relations with all the Nazi WW2 hearachy throught the Second World War.General Heinrich Jurs was killed in action in April of 1945 and his collection descended to his son, then a child, PETER JURS. In 2007 the son of Peter Jurs, and the Grandson of the SS General Heinrich Jurs, sold the entire collection to one JERRY SWALLOW of Los Angeles."

Now, a SS-Gruppenführer (lieutenant general, a rank above major general) Heinrich Jürs seems to have existed. He was chief of the Replacement Office of the Waffen-SS (Ergänzungsamt der Waffen-SS), according to the report The German Replacement Army (Ersatzheer), issued by the Military Intelligence Division, War Department, Washington D.C., April 1944 (pages 328-329).

But it is highly unlikely that there's any connection at all between the historical SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Jürs and the material marketed by Swallow in the 2010s.

In this 2016 CoA Swallow gives more information about the provenance of his "Jurs collection", making the story even more unbelievable (click on image to enlarge).

Jerry Swallow's website: www.sjsmilitaria.com.

Some of the Swallow CoAs are co signed by "Richard Triolo" - it is unknown if this is a real person or a pseudonym.

The front pages of the CoAs issued by Swallow in 2020 look like this (click on image to enlarge):

The recent surfaced Swallow CoAs consist of a front page and two page of concoctions regarding the provenance of the work.

See for more on these 2020 CoAs: Americana Auctions, October 4, 2020 and Americana Auctions, December 6, 2020.  

Sources

Twitter account Jerry Swallow
https://twitter.com/misterswallow

SJS Militaria website (archived)
https://web.archive.org/web/20201224134635/http://www.sjsmilitaria.com/

Sailor Jerry Swallow new trailer (This is my friend Jerry), 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hR4uaLbbus

Space & Autographs Auction September 2016. Regency Superior Auctions, St. Louis, Missouri, 16-08-2016. Pages 108-113.
https://issuu.com/regencysuperior/docs/120_space_lorez/110

Alexanderautogr (= Bill Panagopulos). Horrendous! Regency Superior Auction January 20,. Wehrmacht Awards Forum, [s.l.], 19-01-2017.
https://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/forum/wehrmacht-era-militaria/photos-and-paper-items-forum/885840-horrendous-regency-superior-auction-january-20#post6811185

Original German WWII Signature of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel "The Desert Fox" with Provenance and Authentication. International Military Antiques. Valley Rd, Gillette, NJ (USA). [2018 or 2019]

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-german-wwii-signature-of-field-marshal-erwin-rommel-the-desert-fox-with-provenance-and-authentication?variant=18722497855557

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© Compilation Bart FM Droog, 2020.

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