Gordon Williamson

Rick

As master of genealogy for this Forum, can you throw any more light on some of the members of the Wehrmacht with obvious Scottish roots. Specifically thinking of fighter aces Gordon MacGollob and Douglas Pitcairn of the Luftwaffe and a Kriegsmarine officer Korvettenkapit?n MacLean.

I've seen photos of the Luft guys, have you (or anyone else) ever seen one of MacLean ?

Rick, once this one was introduced, it effectively replaced the earlier award which was no longer issued. No one could possess both.

One of the small number awarded to members of the Handelsmarine

Wonderful stuff Simon !!! Always nice to see something with real historical significance where the action is well documented.

When it comes to the 2nd Pattern E-Boat Badge, the AS has always been my favourite. In minty fresh condition I think they are much nicer than Schwerin and even in "aged" condition, they don't seem to suffer so badly from "bubbling" as the Schwerin pieces.

Very nice Jan Arne. The quality of the gilding on a minty Funcke & Br?ninghaus U-Boat Badge is one of the best you will find for a zinker !

Rick

This blue/white ribbon however was indeed used on the 1914-15 War Medal for capturing the German territories such as Tsingtao.

Reverse. The inscription reads "Mejii 37-8 Years War"

Obverse

Awarded for those who participated in the Russo-Japanese War.

Reverse. The Kanji apparently read " Taisho 3rd Year to 9th Year War"

Close up obverse. The striped effect on the blue part of the ribbon is caused by fading. The reverse as can be seen is overall deep blue.

Awarded to those who took part in the war against Bolshevik forces in Siberia from 1918 until the inception of the award in 1920.

Hi Marshall,

It was only shown with the S&L RK for size comparison, and the reference to the Junker RK is simply in regard to the fact that whoever cut the tooling which gave the beading the # effect on the Junker RK didn't exactly cover himself with glory in terms of being a master craftsman when you look at what could be achieved.

As for this one, it matches the one in Geissler Page 254. which is believed NOT to be Juncker.

Interestingly, the tiny 800 mark is typical of Steinhauer though.

Very nice Rich. Personalised stuff is so much more interesting. I once had a nice KM dagger with the name engraed on the back of the scabbard. Eventually traced it to an officer on a light cruiser. As my real interest is U-Boat I traded it away only for the next owner to do a bit more digging and find out he subseuqently moved from surface ships to U-Boats.

And the beautifully finished outer corners, none of the cross over # effect fround on Junker RKs.

GKs have some very distinctive features, quite apart from the dipping eye. Note the very "flat" top to the beading ribs.

From the smallest ( barring stickpins) for the buttonhole - and note the "female" style ribbon !, to the largest, the Grosskreuz.

From 14mm and 2 gr, - to 63.5mm and 55gr

Very nice Al, you don't have too far to go now on the KM stuff !

Yeah, well at least Dave made a very substantial amount of money from the sale of the RKs so that can console him for not having these pieces any more. Don't however ask him what he did with the wartime S&L Oakleaves that were on one of the Crosses though, that would be too cruel !

The final product

Al, nothing to worry about here, its a perectly legit catch. 90% of those you'll encounter have a round wire catch, but some originals do have this flat catch.

Many fakes have a flat catch, but not quite like this. Many of the better fakes have the typical round wire catch too. The material, finish, typical "zinkpest" on patches, the lettering on the reverse, everything I can see points to it being a good original piece.

Rich,

Indeed, thats the one which found its way over to N.I.

Maybe you can confirm the point that it did not have the dent row referred to by Brian.

Very nice, and rare, piece especially with the Soldbuch paper. I've only ever had one through my hands. I've seen them fetch quite high prices for what they are.

Maybe they left out a step?

Dietrich

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Most likely explanation. For the purposes of their advertising they probably didn't think it was that important that it needed including as a specific step in the manufacture. As frosting is on top of the silvering then by definition it must have come after the silver process and before the final burnishing/polishing stage they show.

As you say , the fascinating thing is how they managed to do it with a completed assembled cross.