saschaw

Finally some Oldenburg enamels in this fine thread - thanks graham, and thanks Komtur! I never (yet) had any knight's cross with swords of this order... but here's an unknown civilian's two place medal bar with the knight's cross 2nd class with crown and an additional "OK2r" that I sold recently home to Oldenburg:

In exactly a month from now, the doors for the 42nd International Collectors' Convention at Gunzenhausen will open. The show is considered Germany's No. 1 and one of the best in Europe, if you're going for orders and decorations. I will be having a table as well, of course, and would look forward to meet some of you fellow Gentlemen again. Check here for the organizers' additional information, e. g. some requirements due to the current pandemic. Also, please watch out for further announcements. We are all hoping the best, but other shows have been already been canceled. In case that should happen to "Gunze" as well, I'll add the information to this thread as soon as possible...

Pardon, but that's nonsense. There is a huge difference between pieces that were made in the old days to be purchased and worn by actual awardees, and pieces made in the past few years, with the only purpose to deceive(!) collectors. Yours is one of the latter category, unfortunately. I have one alike, in my "poison cabinet".

Scott, I have no idea how many Germans fought in the Baghdad area in WW1, but it definitely is an uncommon battle clasps to encounter. The medal bar looks fine and authentic to me, I don't see any problems or "red flags". Sorry to say so, comrade, but the auction photos are not of actual help in this regard...

I had a chance to have a close look at the piece, when I was at Bene Merenti's for an early preview this week. Despite I cannot find an exact same cross at Aurich or Wernitz, I absolutely like what it looks like, and how it's made, and how it's aged. Though not considering myself an expert in 1813 1st classes (but who would?), I'd buy this cross in a heart beat.

Just curious: I hope you didn't buy this cross, Alex? Or if so, had a chance to return the piece?

I had a closer look at the piece at Bene Merenti's when I was there for an auction preview this week, and I am absolutely sure the mentioned piece is one of the recently made fakes that are flooding German ebay in uncountable variations. The enamel, I have to disagree here, is not superior in my eyes, and the patina doesn't look naturally grown but artificially applied. Feel free to compare to this one. From what I understand, this piece will probably be withdrawn from the auction...

I have to agree with Demir: This is a "collectors' copy", to put it politely!

With the cut out Tughra, Al Ghazi and date, this is one of the best crafted types I know, Graham! I have a very similar, but unmarked piece probably from the same workshop for sale right now, unfortunately somewhat damaged. I'm 99,5% safe these are German made, not from an Austrian maker. Please, keep in mind, Austria used very other silver marks until the early 1920s!

Not Krieger-, but Kriegsverdienstmedaille! Somewhat rare is relative, I agree it's uncommon. It definitely is remarkable, however, to find one mounted in a group. It seems most of these went to women, and thus appear on bows, and often even unribboned. I have hardly ever seen any on a medal bar! This thread has been pretty much on the "OK", but Oldenburg's awards are so much more, so I wanted to add an honor cross of the house and merit order order, 1st class with crown, from the earliest type, made by J. G. Hossauer from Berlin in 1857. This is not not mine anymore, but has already found its way into an appreciative collection... hope you enjoy!

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but why do we assume this Langensalza medal is to the mentioned attorney, and not to some enlisted man who of course would not appear in a states handbook? Albrecht is no uncommon surname in northern Germany. I'm not saying it couldn't be his - but neither do I see a reason to think it is, to be honest!

From what is displayed, I'm pretty sure they are early 40s, if not late 30s. Are there any WW2 era awards displayed, I'm not sure? All I can recognize is pre-war Nazi era stuff, plus older German states' awards, of course. I also find it less likely Steinhauer & Lück would present Nazi awards that public in the young Bundesrepublik.

Possibly a misunderstanding?That's a some weeks old auction, but I didn't come to post it until now. Sorry for the confusion! However, the GMIC is completely public, so everybody on the Internet can read what we're discussing, indeed - even without a registration.

Definitely better, but "no cigar". This type of long service decoration wasn't introduced until 1913, so wouldn't fit into an 1880s/1890s group. I would switch it for one of the older type medals, maybe this one currently on ebay, but there is no way to tell exactly which type, or which class the wearer actually had. I also want to point out that the last ribbon, while it might have had the Swedish order, more likely belongs to another Saxon 1860s decoration: The Erinnerungskreuz an die Bundesexekution in Holstein 1863/64! Despite the precedence is a bit odd, it still seems a way better fit to me...

I think it's authentic or don't see anything suggest otherwise, despite there are many fakes of these out. However, I absolutely cannot read the script! Are you aware we are having an Ottoman/Turkish forum here? There are the experts, who may or may not find this "German" thread. Also, over there there's quite some older threads on the topic, like this one: TURKISH RIBBON BARS. Maybe you want to compare to those shown there, and/or ask the Ottoman/Turkish experts?

I have seen another ebay monstrosity that reminded me of this medal... a "Freikorps" group with two of them!

Indeed, you're probably right, Laurentius. But maybe this is the answer to the initial question as well? The details of the orders aren't too exact, after all... I do think that's the best guess so far. The "Kleine Dekoration" for several Prussian(!) orders was introduced in early 1914, but I was rather referring to early and mid 19th century fashion and special 'rules' for monarchs and aristocrats. Like the Prussian princes wearing lower classes of the Prussian merit orders, and some other dynasties even wearing their merit crosses only. But all that won't help with this portrait, I fear...

While I agree with Laurentius' "the painting is [not] detailed enough to establish which order is represented", I don't think it makes much sense to speculate wildly. Some awards mentioned here wouldn't even be awarded to a member of European royalty! I just checked at Georg Richter's Der Königlich Sächsische Militär-St.-Heinrichs-Orden 1736-1918. Ein Ehrenblatt der Sächsischen Armee from 1964, and could only find Herzog Ernst received the Grand Cross of the thought order on December 29th, 1815, but I don't find it too odd to see an aristocrat wear a knight's cross, instead or sometimes even additionally, to a sash badge and breast star, as some kind of fashion statement. It is another era, I aware of that, but the Great War medal bar of Kaiser Wilhelm II, as show here, was a long array of German states' knight's crosses - which actually represented the Grand Cross grades he had been conferred with! On German Wikipedia, I found another portrait of Herzog Ernst, with possibly the same cross worn on the bar, and here, I'd say it's somewhat more looking like a Saxon Order of St. Henry:

Good one, and it has been worth to be restored - or refilled, if you like that term better! While the medals looked all the same, this is clearly not the group to a veteran of the Napoleonic era, and neither do I see anything indicating active service in 1848 or 1849, like a long service decoration. Furthermore, it seems to me Hessen-Darmstadt's soldiers weren't involved in Schleswig-Holstein, but in Baden only in those years, so we'd have to expect a Baden 1849 Gedächtnismedaille, the so called Brudermordmedaille. There was a total of 341,949 steel medals on this ribbon awarded, to active serving soldiers that did not cross the German-French borders, but stayed "at home" and cared for the garrisons and such.

This is a very common, possibly the most common type of the MVK to appear on the market. It is my firm opinion those are, despite they're often offered as such, absolutely no old wearers' copies, but 1980s(?) so called museum copies by Göde (that's not Godet!), a German firm similar to The Franklin Mint. So, more or less, this is teleshopping stuff! On German ebay, they are sometimes even to be found with their original "certificates", like this one: https://www.ebay.de/itm/224121075537

Something new, in the past ten years? It would be great to see him wear such a bar in two rows...

We could only speculate who made the variant cross; Nimmergut doesn't name a certain maker. The usual suspects from Pforzheim, Lüdenscheid and Berlin come to mind. These crosses are considered to be private purchase wearers' copies, contemporary or probably rather from the 1920 or 1930s...

Well, sometimes things are easier than they seem... The mark "WS" was used by Hofjuweliere Joh. Wagner & Sohn from Berlin, one of if not the most important supplier of the Prussian Generalordenskommission in the last two or three decades of the monarchy. Despite being quite common, their crosses are definitely desirable!

Just to be 100%, I can confirm these bars are Riemann's! I know where they came from, not the auction, but the previous owner, and they did come with some unusual and important IR 138 memorabilia, like an association flag. Some of Riemann's single awards were available as well, so we don't have to expect his medal bar to surface anywhere. This is his lovely early to mid war, real golden EH3aX which I'm currently offering:

As usual, Rick was right: According to Edmund von der Becke-Klüchtzner's 1886 Stamm-Tafeln des Adels des Großherzogthums Baden: ein neu bearbeitetes Adelsbuch he was indeed Anton v. Froben's son: Their third child and only son, assuming there weren't any younger siblings born after the source was published in 1886. Becke-Klüchtzner is a great reference to the nobility in Baden, but it's a shame it seems it was published only once, in 1886...