joemiller

Mr. Danner, is there now a list that is available for the Schwarzburg awards. I tried searching the entire site and maybe I missed it. The posts just seem to end but don't point to where we might find the lists. Thanks for all you do.

I just went to your link on the German medals website and saw the medal bar owned by Vtwin Vince. That is such a great and rare medal bar. Congratulations on that piece.

I'd like to see the China bar too. I think these colonial awards are just so interesting. Rarely awarded many times for actions not really documented anywhere.

Thierry, sorry I am really late to this discussion. I was wondering how you know that the Afrika bar is from Saxe-Meiningen. I am not disputing you, just wondering how you can tell which of the Saxon duchies the bar came from. Thanks for any help you can give me.

The best book I have found on this award is "Die Orden und Ehrenzeichen der Anhaltischen Staaten" by Gerd Scharfenberg. This is an excellent book about all of the awards of Anhalt. It includes 8 pages on the creation of the Marie Cross with excellent photographs and extensive excerpts from original documents. In regard to the two questions you raised, Scharfenberg says the obverse initials are F for Friedrich and M for Marie.(page 304). He also writes that as with most Anhalt awards, the records of awards were lost after the archives in Dessau were lost in a bombing during World War II. He does postulate that the cross was only awarded between April and September 1918.

I forgot to mention that the 139 1870/1 sword bars were from Altenburg only.

Rick, there may be a partial answer to your question. The book, "Ehrenzeichen des Herzogtums Sachsen - Altenburg" does have award numbers listed in it for 1870/1. It states 139 awards of the silver medal with the 1870/1 sword bar.

Just last week a small treasure from Schwarzburg appeared on Ebay. I was not fortunate enough to win it. This is a medal bar with a Schwarzburg Silver Merit Medal with the elusive 1917 bar. This was the best the picture would come out.

Thanks Rick, now that's what I call real knowledge. This is really helpful, although I'll probably never see one first hand, let alone getting one for $30 on Ebay.

Saschaw, I have never seen one of those colonial crosses except for the one at the beginning of this thread. Is the key to these the information about the center medallion? You say that the center medallions are three separate pieces? Are there any figures on how many of these were awarded. Since there was one at the beginning of this thread, was that given for the Southwest Africa colonial war? Thanks for all of this information.

I'll take one of each volume

To amplify a little on this topic, here is a picture of a sister and a brother both with the same obverse that started this thread. On the left is the reverse of the Ehrenzeichen fur Kriegsfursorge, (raised letters) awarded beginning in September 1915 to men and women for acts which didn't merit a Military Sanitary Cross. Then, on the right, beginning in June of 1916, the Kriegsehrenzeichen (engraved letters) was created to reward merit by men only for acts which didn't merit a Military Sanitary Cross or a General Honor Decoration for Bravery. The Ehrenzeichen fur Kriegsfursorge reverted to a decoration for women only. I have always found the Ehrenzeichen fur Kriegsfursorge to be much more difficult to find.

In my haste, I spelled the name of the Cross wrong. It is properly the Marien Kreuz.

This is the reverse.