Claudius

Outstanding! And so quickly too. Your sign-on name "Speedy"top fit you well Tonight I will look up those names and see if I can find matches. Hopefully only one will match. Thank you again Uwe!

Hey...look what I found just laying about! (Sorry Chris -I couldn't resist) This is a photo of Naval Lieutenant Gunter G. Plüschow in his Heinkel HD-24. The "TSINGTAU" on the fuselage is a nod to his time as a lone German aviator at the Siege of Tsingtau. This photo is from after the war when he was working in South America.

Hello; Could I ask for some Signature help? There are TEN signatures on this document and I would like to read the names. I know I can look them up, once I know who they are. Can someone make out the names for me? Thanks.

Yes they did Chris. Officers could even leave the camp to explore the surrounding countryside, if they swore as officers that they would return by nightfall. There are accounts of being followed by Japanese police, but the German officers kept their word and returned.

I almost forgot...here it is after my work on it.

Now that that is done, I needed to put the document in a sleeve or case that would protect it. I think I might want to eventually put it in a display mount, but for teh time being I need to store it in a safe manner. The 13.5” x 16.5” is an odd size so I made a pocket folder from acid-free, 100% rag cardboard stock. I recommend both, acid-free and the 100% rag stock.

Another picture and the product I used...

This document had some rips and some fatigued areas from hard creases. The best restorative work is done with rice paper and handmade wheat flour glue applied with a sable brush. I didn’t go quite that far. I used a quality restoration tape and burnished is across the cracks and rips. It holds the document in place, keeps it from tearing further, and best of all, it is reversible, should any future restorer would like to work on the document.

I usually start with two, maybe three very clean, white sheets. At least one stays dry and goes underneath the document. Even when working on an ironing board, I put a clean sheet down to work on. The other two may be moistened or remain dry depending on the severity of the damage and/or thickness of the paper. I put the document on top of the cloth –face down. I always start from the back side and do most of the work there and not against the ink side if I can at all help it. The other sheet is lightly placed on top. At all times, I never let the hot iron touch the document. I may use the sheet dry, but if the paper is thick and bent over I will use a moistened cloth. In this case, this document used heavy stock paper and two corners were bent over. I wetted one cloth with distilled water from my de-humidifier and wrung it out. Then squeezed more, opened it up and ran the hot iron over it first to draw off even more water. Finally the cloth was only moist. Warm to the touch, but not too wet. Gently I placed the moist cloth over the document, not even pressing down yet. With a clean iron, with no water in the reservoir, I touched the wetted cloth and let the produced steam go into the document. Gently I press to make contact. When the paper fibers were warmed and hydrated from the steam, I gently folded the corners back into the original position. Once in place, a dry cloth can be used to iron the document and draw out the excess water in the document. The document may now want to curl as one side is dryer than the other. The document has to be flipped over, a dry cloth on top and the document needs to be lightly ironed to counter-act the curl.

Greetings; I thought I would show how I work on a document that needed some light repairs. Right or wrong, this is the way I've done it for may of my documents in a similar condition. I have had a lot of success with this method and have always improved the overall condition of the document. But it is important to have a light touch and be patient. I don’t recommend it to anyone who is nervous about putting a hot iron next to 100+ year-old documents or generally has a blacksmith approach to small tasks. This document I recently acquired is 13 ½ inches by 16 ½ inches on heavy stock. It had creases, tears, and turned corners and didn’t lie flat. I knew that I wanted to return the original appearance and preserve the document.

This is really odd, as in fact-is-stranger-than-fiction sort of way. A Russian Order on a Japanese Award Document. If I didn't see it here, I would think it was a Frankenstein mash-up joke. Thank you for showing this.

Hello William Forsth; Welcome to the forum. I tried to figure out what your device is, but I couldn't come to a conclusion. I will share with you what I understand about this item. I believe your first photo of the metal manufacturing label is very informative. Starting off; the manufacturer is Novitas S.A., headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. I couldn't find anything on this company. Next is the Type; "LW" but without the company records of the different models and makes of devices they made, this isn't very helpful. Next is "10 A" and " 250 V" along with "~" The 10 A is for 10 Amps and the 250 V is 250 volts. The ~ is not for a battery, and that would suggest a remote device. The "~" symbol is for alternating current. Like the "10" and the "250" the metal label was specifically marked to indicate that this device needs A/C current. Lastly, again the engraved number is hard to read but is it "168389"? That is the patent number. If you could access the Swiss patent records and look up this number it will tell you EXACTLY what this is for. Overall, I think that you are right that this is a electrically run timer of some sort, with the 24 hour wheel found inside. But I don't think it is meant to explode at the end. Besides needing A/C current and not the independent power source that a battery would provide, the 24-hour wheel inside appears to be better suited to continuous uses over months or even years. Sorry I couldn't be of any more help.

Greetings; Proof that the ebay snipers can be beat. This arrived today after I won it last month. My many thanks to the seller for packaging it well for the trip here. I haven't had time to take a good photo and I didn't read all of the signatures at the bottom, but the one signature that did attract me to this POW made document was the one on the bottom left. That's Meyer-Waldeck, the Governor and Commander of the Tsingtau garrison just before and during the siege of Tsingtau. Here is my translation; Honor Document Gymnastic Club______Narashiro (in the circle motif above) At the Gymnastic Contest On November 10, 1918, the Gymnast, Albrecht, in a 12-event, upper level contest received the 6th place with 124 3/4 points. Gymnastics Club Narashiro the 10th of November 1918 The Judges: ------------------------ His full name was; Fritz H. R. Albrecht POW #854 Ober-Matrosen Artl. -5th Company M.A.K. from Südenburg

Don't know. I pulled on as many threads as I could find it but I couldn't tie this one down. The puns are intended, but so are my sincere efforts and the (lack of) results.

I agree with this statement as well. I think that we are honed by our past collecting experiences, our current collections and what we are consciously or unconsciously looking for. But I also think that any of us could be "talked into” buying any bar if we really like something about it -even if had the bar had a "bad" medal we personally didn't like. However, I have to agree that the Treuedienst-Ehrenzeichen is very obtrusive. A virtual thumb-in-the-eye. Nearly all TR medals have swastikas, but most are more subtitle in appearance. This large black on silver is perhaps the loudest.

Odd hook, but I think it's all good. With that backing, I would guess a navy guy. Nice. I was really draw to it, because three of the awards were earned, or relate to WWI service. In WWI, the Japanese were an active enemy (see Siege of Tsingtau). But by 1934 that all changed and they eventually became Allies.

I tried to ask many of those same questions myself. On the Japan forum I received a lot of great help. In general however, much of the recipient records have been destroyed in WWII. Numbers and who are mostly lost. In addition to the RS (Rising Sun) the ST (Sacred Treasure) would be awarded to foreigners. While not conclusive, it is generally believed that the RS would be handed out to military and civilian foreigners for official visits, diplomatic occasions, etc. by Japanese notables. The ST might be awarded by the Japanese military to worthy foreign military officers for noticed military exploits or liaison services to Japan. As for navy or foreign service? It might be both. But I’m guessing a Navy bar. Could you show some close up photos of the front, but especially the reverse. What color is the backing?

Two Hamburgers?! That's more than I'm hungry for. nevertheless, it would seem it has gone from three candidates to a possible four.

There it is!?! I found that medal bar at long last. The little unique four medal one; EK2, LuH, HK, Japan Rising Sun. At least I believe it the same one -same medals. Good to see it again. I see it is in great company. http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/38228-anyone-seen-my-medal-bar/ You have a lot of great bars. An outstanding collection. Thanks for posting them!

I was just reminded that years ago the rolls for the Württemberg Golden Military Merit Medal (WGMMM) were being worked on, and are now finished and cross-tabulated with the other known rolls. On this thread, I was looking to identify the owner of this medal bar. To re-cap: The known candidates were narrowed down to these three. Thank you again Naxos for providing some outstanding details. Lt. d. R. Paul Frech, rec’d WGMMM 8/31/17 Lt. d. R. Artur Rieber, rec’d WGMMM 8/31/17 Lt. d. R. Eugen Hamburger, rec’d WGMMM on 8/27/18 Lt. d. R. Hamburger most likely earned the WGMMM for actions during the British attacks on Hénin sur Cojeul (August 23rd 1918) or Mühlenberg (August 24-27, 1918). He was listed as MIA on August 27, 1918 after the battle at Mühlenberg (Henin sur Cojeul - Cherisy). Eugen Hamburger did survive the war in a British POW camp. Of these three, I am wondering if the new roll tabulations would provide any way to separate them further. Either with additional awards they earned, and are not on the medal bar, or maybe died before 1934 and didn’t earn the Hindenburg Cross. Thank you for your help.

Thank you.

Hello; Who signed the Sudatenland citation? I think I have seen his signature before I but I don't know who it is.

Stolen Valour. Because if I owned it I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a Civil War MOH winner