Bar & Swords: Date Scroll Saxe-Coburg

Here is, literally, a UNIQUE piece. Alone among all the German decorations of World War One, Sachsen-Coburg's Carl Eduard Medal Second Class with Swords and DATE scroll bears the individual ACTION date for which the recipient was decorated.

Unfortunately for us, the award ROLLS list the date that the medal was BESTOWED and NOT the date engraved on each medal's action bar.


But with only 334 of these awarded to Germans, and no two that I'm aware of with the same date... here is indeed a "one off" piece. This is also the ONLY miniature device I have ever seen where a date scroll has been custom made in reduced form for a ribbon bar rather than on the full sized medal. The full sized bars are the year and crossed swords, with banderoles added engraved with the day and month.

The owner of this "anonymous" tiny treasure has been identified from his other awards, and the COMPLETE ribbon bar will be discussed in the main Article text.

Courtesy of the incredibly lucky Deruelle.