joemiller

Rick, based on your experience with the Saxe-Meiningen War Merit Cross rolls, do you think it will be possible to determine the breakout between the numbers of chocolate bronze and the zinc crosses. I guess there is no firm date for the changeover to zinc but is it reasonable to think it would be sometime in 1918? The zinc crosses seem to appear less often on Ebay or other auctions.

Daniel, I forget what Rick said you were going to do with the merit medals of the three duchies, so this may be a dumb question. Do you have totals for the Gold and Silver Merit Medals for the three duchies?

I have wondered for a while how there could be a sword bar for the Saxe Coburg Gotha Merit medals which has the date "1914". The dated sword bar was re-instituted until May 22, 1915. Did the government go back and issue a 1914 bar? And if they did I would assume there were very few of these issued. This picture is one which was recently on Ebay.

Rick, thanks again for all of your hard work. Since the swords awards by these duchies, according to Hessenthal and Schreiber, only were reauthorized for World War I in March of 1915, that really underlines your statement that these numbers have to be taken as partial. As you had posted previously in answer to one of my questions, the majority of these silver and gold sword awards for the merit medals of these three duchies appear to have been given out by Saxe Coburg Gotha. Altenburg appears to have given out way less than 100 gold medals with swords and less than 300 silver medals with swords. Meiningen based at least on the numbers you have found is probably on a par with Altenburg. Coburg Gotha seems to have awarded silver X's in the thousands and gold X's in the hundreds.

If you can post a scan of one of these documents I would appreciate it. Also if you ever know where to get a spare bow ribbon I would pay a lot for it. Thanks.

Solomon, I would love to get a copy of your article on the Lippe-Detmold Military Merit Medal. I can offer you the use of that picture of my Military Merit Medal without swords if you need it for the article.

One book that I have on Saxe-Altenburg indicates that approximately 15,000 Bravery Medals were issued. That Bravery Medal was minted in several different types of metal after its original founding in 1915. The first was bronze, the next was a bronzed war metal, and the last was in zinc. On Ebay there is a bronze Bravery Medal and the seller writes that only 550 of those bronze ones were issued. If that's the case then while the Bravery Medal was fairly common, the Bronze early war version should be quite valuable if there were only 550 out of 15,000. Can anyone confirm that this is the case?

The other two duchies medals are smaller in diameter (Saxe-Altenburg-33mm and Saxe-Coburg Gotha-30mm). Altenburg only had plain swords for World War One awards and Coburg-Gotha had dates on the sword bar that varied but followed the format of 1914/5. I have examples of these other states merit medals.

This is the reverse of the Silver Merit Medal of Saxe-Meiningen with sword bar. Note the silver content mark on the back of the sword bar.

I collect mostly merit crosses and merit medals, but I do have a Saxe-Meiningen Merit Medal with the sword bar for 1914. It is one of my favorite medals and I think the sword bar is a lot rarer than the pricing guide would have you believe.

Rick, thanks for all your work on this project. I have the O'Connor book and he showed between 150 and 160 of the Silver Merit Cross with swords. This one I have was at a gun show and the seller didn't know what it was so I jumped on it. I wish I could find one in gold with swords to make the pair. Probably too greedy, huh?

Here is the reverse of the medal. Easy to see from this side how someone might call it a miniature of the War Merit Cross.

Since Rick is typing his fingers to the bone on Saxe-Meiningen and he was interested in the Womens Merit Cross, I thought I would add a picture of one in my collection. I got this one several years ago very cheaply because it was billed as a prinzen-sized War Merit Cross from Saxe-Meiningen. There was no picture so I took a chance. It came on a noncombattant ribbon not the proper bow ribbon, but I could never find a replacement. Note the triple "C's" and the lack of crowns between the arms. Also it is only 30 mm, not 39 mm.

The back of this first version has the diemaker's mark along the bottom reverse, "G. Loos Dir" That is not on the World War One version of the medal.

I hope you don't mind if I add this first version of the Military Merit Medal (no swords on the obverse)

Here is the back of the silver merit cross.

Since Rick mentioned them, here is my silver merit cross with swords.

I am hoping that the SEHO rolls from Saxe-Meiningen will help us to determine just how difficult the gold and silver merit medals with the sword bar were. This one one of my favorites

I would appreciate one of each of these books. We are all going to benefit from this work for years to come.

That is a very nice medal. Once I learn how to upload pictures, I'll upload one of a White Falcon Merit Cross with Swords