07.29.09
IACMC versus the Harvard of Camouflage…Which one do I choose???
OK…there are a multiplicity of militaria forums & message boards out there…I am ONLY going to focus on 2…IACMC, which is run by a governing board of sorts…with me as the FINAL say. I also created the board, and spent countless hours refining & redesigning the site. In fact we are on our 3rd forum site. The 1st 2 were on another site but did NOT give us what we were exactly looking for, so the board was derelict for around 6 months before 2009 hit and my best friend & I said “why not give it another shot…it is a NEW year maybe…just maybe we can get the thing off of the ground….see before we only had about 30 members with about 3 or 4 active posters…which equates to a joke. Well, in Feb of 2009 the site was launched…or shall I say relaunched. In about 5 months, we have about 109 members. We will see how it goes…We like to collect militaria & have fun doing it.
Now the other board ICUS is run by 1 person & 1 person alone…they make ALL decisions & there are NO moderators…sure you can send in your opinions & ideas…but there is NO guarantee that the ideas will be acted upon. Now ICUS is mostly for camouflage…previously was ONLY for camouflage. It is the Harvard for collecting camouflage(well at least that is how I look at it) ICUS was previously only a YAHOO group for however many years. Well the entire time it was a YAHOO group it was strictly for camouflage ONLY…NOW for a few facts about the startup of IACMC & ICUS as forums…
ICUS was at that time only a Yahoo group, it had not yet become a forum like this one. I joined because I was buying large numbers of uniforms in 2006 & 2007 especially. Throughout my time there…I and eventually nkomo(my best friend of over 20 years) noted a few important things…The group was strictly ONLY for camouflage at that time…so if you had a dress uniform or a helmet or patches…ICUS was not for you…during this time my friend was a member of the US Militaria Forum, so I joined there at some point. BUT the problem there was that it was strictly for US items not international stuff & Whermacht Awards was pretty much ONLY for German & East German…NO one forum was dedicated to militaria & topics from ALL time periods & ALL countries. So we decided back in 2007 to come up with something like IACMC. Well I was the one who had more time due to taking care of my grandfather here in my home & also I knew more about how to do stuff like that. I had my own website I had made & was working on, etc. So in Jan of 2008 the 1st incarnation of IACMC was created…later on there was a 2nd one and this one in 2009 is the 3rd & hopefully final version. The reason for the changes were finding free forum software that was easy to use & yet had features that were comparable with the paid software…and forumation was the one chosen.
But…back in January of 2008, quite possibly the 18th…was when the IACMC forum was created. At that point in time ICUS was STILL a Yahoo group. ICUS had plans to develop a forum but had not as of yet…THEN I was courteous and after a 2 week period emailed the “brains” behing ICUS to let him know that we had created a forum & explained it etc. On Feb 11, 2008 I received the link to join the new ICUS FORUM. And 3 1/2 paragraphs of the 7 paragraphs were concerning this forum. He told me “no, there are no hard feelings from my end towards your creation of an alternative website for militaria collectors.” YES..I have this email. and later on in it told me that he wishes me luck with it. Well…he & 1 other joined our forum right away and WOW…the ICUS forum was created & was OPEN for business about 2 weeks after ours went online..and another interesting footnote is it resembled ours pretty closely…In our opinions this was NOT coincidence. And then ICUS suddenly had areas for other items like headgear, patches, gear etc…even though those sections have very few entries/posts. This was apparently due to suggestions from members.
IACMC is for ALL militaria & ALL countries from ALL time periods…SIMPLY put…We are for EVERYTHING. We WELCOME all collectors from all corners of the world. We are a happy bunch of people(generally-haha) and we LOVE to see photos from everyones collection…We are almost a show & tell while learning. We BELIEVE that the best learning takes place when the atmosphere is relaxed & there is a sense of FUN in the air. Just ask any of the 109 folks in there, I have not heard ANY negative comments yet….with the exception of the “ICUS COMMANDER” who is NO longer a member….
So if you LOVE camouflage…go join ICUS…they may let you in…if you love to have fun & collect all sorts of things…then join IACMC….Frankly I could care less…BUT even better…join both & see for yourself….We have many of our members who have either left or got “fired” from USMF & ICUS in our forum….BUT that is OK…we will BE GLAD to have ya…
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