A forum member asked me over the weekend at a local milsurp shooting match how to ID Germanicon MG34 and MG42 belts and starter tabs from post-war ones (ie, Israeli, Yugoicon, etc.).

So I figured I'd do a little post about it here. The below picture shows all the possibly styles of German marked belts. Belts are always marked on the tabs if German, and starter tabs are also marked on the tab, and if converted from type 1 tabs to type 2 tabs, the conversion date will be stamped into the tongue (see last photo, bottom right, for an example of a conversion date stamp).

Some late war tabs may not be marked at all. In those cases, you can't distinguish them from post-war tabs which are generally unmarked. Only pay a premium for marked belts as shown below.

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