Austria-Hungary Can anybody identify this for me?

[KeithB]

I'm sorry. This is slightly older than the 1st World War, but I thought it would get better responses here. I have completely forgotten what this is.

Also, it is as large and heavylike a table medals, but has a loop. If anybody can identify it and it is a worn medal what were the colors of the ribbon?

Thanks,

Keith

[Tom Y]

An interesting piece but commemorative, I think, not official. The inscription reads Joseph II Francis Augustus, Roman and Austrian emperor and the date, 1806, is that of the defeat of Austria by Napoleon, pecipitating the abdication of Joseph as Holy Roman Emperor and the dissolution of the Empire. The statue would lead me to believe that it's in honor of the dedication of a monument to Joseph. The loop was most likekly for hanging on the wall.

[Ed_Haynes]

While I'll defer to greater experts, I think we need to be careful with their early commemorative (table) medals. In many cases, they were mounted and worn, so they straddle the two worlds of numismatics and phaleristics. At least with the ones I study (India-related), the threshold is not as exact as we sometimes think it is. An interesting evolutionary moment?

[hunyadi]

An interesting evolutionary moment?

I would agree - there is a PHD paper somewhere in that thought process! I think we tend to see more mass produced 'awards' that fit on a chest as indistry became more avaialble to the human race to be able to fill the chests of the common soldier. Just my philisophical thoughts....

Edited October 12, 2006 by hunyadi

[KeithB]

The statue would lead me to believe that it's in honor of the dedication of a monument to Joseph.

Thanks, you knocked something loose. I remember now that that is exactly what it was supposed to be when I bought it.

Thanks everybody for the responses.

Keith

The bust is done by the usual sculptor 'IN WIRT F" (anybody know what this person's real, full name was?) but it is definately a different portrait of Franz than on my other two Franz medals, though one of them is so eroded that it is difficult to tell.

Edited October 13, 2006 by KeithB

[Josef Rietveld]

The bust is done by the usual sculptor 'IN WIRT F" (anybody know what this person's real, full name was?)

His full name was Johann Nepomuk Wirt also written W?rth or Wirth (1753-1810)

aynau