Austria-Hungary Large Golden Bravery Medal post war issue

[hunyadi]

A few days ago I picked up a zink based Karoly era Large Bravery Medal. I had been looking for a zink based one to add to my collection as these were made by jewelyry stores to sell as replacements to veterans. In the 1919-22 period many examples of these are found and they were struck using the warteime dies and bear the appropriate marks - however they are made of zink. I found this exampe and hemmed and hawed about the fact that it looked to me like someone had spray-painted it gold to make it into a gold grade bravery medal (very rare!) My intention was to take it home and scrub off the gold finsih. When I got home I prepared to do the process, but held off when I noticed the ring and the counter ring (not made of zink) were not painted but rather guilded in gold! I then inspected the few spots of zink pest and niticed that the "pest" areas had no traces of gold on them, making it appear to me that the pest had developed after the gold finsih was applied. Then for the litmus test, I showed the medal to the currator of orders and decorations at the Hungarian Military Museum and he confirmed that it was indeed an inter-war period piece and advices me not to clean it or to return it! (as I was planning on doing as I thought it had been too dinkered with!) - its now a welcome addition to the collection!

[hunyadi]

and the reverse - notice the zink pest.

[Kev in Deva]

Try a spot, i.e. a thin application of beeswax over the medal, to slow down the zink bloom

Kevin in Deva

[Ulsterman]

WOW!!!!!!!!

OMG!

Rarer than an RK certainly.

The golden rule on the Antiques roadshow- Never clean anything!

[hunyadi]

WOW!!!!!!!!

OMG!

Rarer than an RK certainly.

The golden rule on the Antiques roadshow- Never clean anything!

Well - not like and RK - I cant get 12K for her. But its more along the lines of a Interwar PLM in my book - its clearly from after the war and was sold as a replacement for soldiers to wear, esp after the Bela Kun regin of terror. But its still has the tinge of history and of a great act of bravery that went along with it.

As for controling the zink-pest. I have found Vaseline to do wonders in restoring finish and actualy nearly reversing the damage done. But the beeswax is also a good idea to seal it afterwards.

[bazsi]

Those bravery medals which has the Kautsch or Petzl marker were war period medals. After war manufactures used to make medals with different portraits, and most of the cases unmarked versions. In the 20's G?l made K?roly type bravery medals (bronze, small silver, large silver and gold) with a very bad portrait with Schuck J marker on the front side of the medal, and G?l marker on the back side.

Regards,

Bazsi

A Petzl type:

[bazsi]

G?l type bronze medal

[bazsi]

[Guest Rick Research]

:Cat-Scratch: That's very interesting! I have never seen Hungarian made ones with "new" die cutter names on them before.

[bazsi]

G?l type gold medal (I'm sorry for the bad photo):

[Guest Rick Research]

Petzl looks quite good but G?l--- :speechless1:

[bazsi]

Petzl looks quite good but G?l---

I think the same. What could be happen if G?l wer made such horrible portraits a few years before:-)...

[hunyadi]

Bazi -

For all the years I spent there - I never knew this... I will now have to dig all the bravery medals out and find the marks...

When I presented this to the Hungarian Military Museum curator of medals he identified it as a post war strike. Now this sheds a little more light on it that it was a late war manufacture for sure. Many thanks!

[bazsi]

Charles,

I'm happy if I can help in such questions. These informations about bravery medals are mostly (but not all) experiences. Most of the literature (e.g. Hungarians) doesn't write about these problems. Mericka writes a few words about Petzl signature medals.

Regards,

Bazsi

[Elmar Lang]

Hello,

a point that it's interesting to note about Hunyadi's GTM in zinc is that, although signed "KAUTSCH", it isn't made from the dies of this engraver. This will be well visible when comparing the piece with an official Kautsch one.

Anyways, it's an interesting replacement piece, probably from the 1918-1930 years (in my opinion closer the 1st War years), well worth a place in a collection.

Best wishes,

Enzo

[roenk]

Here is mine medal.

[hunyadi]

I still remain a bit bumbfounded at the makers mark - yet - cant seem to find a similar die. The most pronounced is the detail of the hair. Is is possible that "Kautsch" made another die perhaps later as Enzo pointed out? Making it a plausable 1920-30's strike - anyone out there have a similar large silver or gold example with the same die characteristics?