About The Devices Gallery !!!

In almost every case, all devices shown here are exactly the same proportion to each other, having been scanned on 96dpi at 500% resolution.

They are arranged by "shape," to make it easier for anyone not able to identify what something is to locate a "wreath" or quickly scan through various sorts of "bars" or "rosettes" or miniatures of "medal" designs to match what they are looking for.

Although this is about GERMAN ribbon bars, it is obvious that many of the devices illustrated here are not German at all. But they were awarded TO Germans, and worn BY Germans... and they are not going to be found in any color charts of German ribbons.

Ribbons underneath pre-Third Reich devices will be identified as well, because of the huge assortment of Imperial era awards. I have tried to point out what is normal, what is odd-- and very often decades old MISTAKES.

This is an ongoing work very much slowly In Progress. Please forgive any typos: yes, I will correct them as I catch them.

What is here now, on 27 May 2007 (200 scans) is nowhere near what will eventually be posted.

And this is merely the individual DEVICES area of this online opus. Detailed sections on ribbon bars themselves, fakes, research, and so on will all be added. The Regulations section has been started, as has the Ribbon Bars In Wear original photos section.

Please bear with me while the work progresses. I am still mainly engaged in transcribing unpublished WW1 award rolls, so this is a "fill in" to my labours.

Much of this work will be familiar to those of you who have been online a while. That is because the FIRST edition of my Online Ribbon Bar Article remains-- contrary to my expressly stated wishes-- posted elsewhere. This SECOND edition will be expanded and improved and THIS is the only authorized place for my work to appear.

All images are from my own collection unless creditted to the friends around the globe without whom this could not have been possible. NONE are"off the internet" from carelessly unnoted sources.

This Online Opus is posted here and here only to be shared by fellow collectors. No images are to be copied elsewhere without my specific, individual authorization. Shared does not mean "given" and certainly not to imply that decades of work can be TAKEN. If this sounds cranky, bear in mind my bitter experience with people whose word can NOT be taken, as among gentlemen.

The illustration here is from Otto Schickle's June 1940 catalog (thanks to Gordon Williamson), and shows their versions of the 1939 Prague Bar to the 1938 Sudeten Anschluss Medal, and the 40 Years Service wreath authorized for Wehrmacht 25 Years Long Service Crosses in 1939. These range dowwn from full medal bar size, to large ribbon bar size, to small ribbon bar size, and are rerpresentative of the endlessly fascinating differences to be found among these tiny but important distinctions.


Any questions raised here can be addressed in the regular Forums sections.