Chris Boonzaier

Regts Führer ist Garde Grenadier Regt 1 in March 1918

Garde Grenadier Regiment 1

1st Garde Regt zu Fuss Sept 1918

1st Garde Regt zu Fuss November 1915

Also on an Infantry Lehr doc from Novermber 1918

A Battalion Commander of the Infantry Lehr Regiment

WW1

An infantryman, photographed in Frankfurt

An infantryman, photographed in Frankfurt

Erich Raeder

General Dietl

Commander of the 3rd U-<Flotille

Indeed. Anyway, the offer is made, anyone who needs can please contact him by PM,

Personally I dont give 2 fiddlers farts about what color jackets they wore but thank Rick and Jeff for taken the trouble t make this availible to us. Best Chris

I agree with Ed... I want a part as well.... dashing, handsome and plagued by ladies of noble birth etc. etc...

Bingo, Thats the thrust of the chapter I am working on.... those figures mean nothing without a bunch of other figures added. It is something that IMHO needs more than the stats published so far. best Chris

I have seen numbers between 3.5 million to 5 Million for WW1... what is the accepted figure nowdays? Best Chris

Very nice and carefully repaired piece. I had an 1870 one that had the same repair on the top. For a comman award like the WW1 cross, i find it actually more attractive than an unrepaired piece. Best Chris

many books are of the opinion that the WW1 EK suffered a huge loss of prestige and was "Cheaper" to earn than an 1870 one. It is a subject i want to deal with in a section in the book, and would be curious as to what opinions you guys have on it. Thanks Chris

Hi, That's always a very fine red line indeed... I am also one to walk the conservative side when it comes to WW2 variants. There is maybe a way to include variants in a section with the caveat that the author is not 100% sure of them best Chris

Hi, I agree with your view on Geissler, It just arrived a few days ago, at first view it was amazing, but the cracks soon become apparent... but as I said before, He really has a great WW1 section. I have not seen the Maerz & Stimson book as i have little or nothing on WW2. I have the Williamson book as it came out when I was still collecting WW2, and it covers the bits I need to know. I have a soft spot for it because it straddels the "Pre net" and "Internet" time, if you go back on WAF to the 2001 or 2002 threads you will see the forums were just a bunch of guys chatting about medals... and inspite of not having the advantage we have today of being able to bounce ideas of lots of people, there are very, very few errors in the book. The only one I can think of is the Rounder, but to be realistic, EVERYONE was accepting them then. You cannot fault the book for not knowing what was not known at the time. Best Chris

Pow! Thats putting the boot in ;-) I "Mispoke myself" .. I have no 1813, 1870 cred, so i will bow to your expertise on that. I do however like the WW1 section, for me there were a few gems in there, especially in my area of collecting. I would be interested to know if Geissler is online. How can someone make so many errors in an era where you can use collectors from all over the world as a sounding board?? Maybe he spread himself too thin and tried to cover too much. Between his first book and this there are 13 years passed and plenty of opportunity to check things before putting them in a book. Previtera seems to have made the correct move, using the net to get the kinks out of book 1 and not have them in Book 2. Focus seems to be the main issue. The books that try to cover it all seem to trip up somewhere. So far Gordon Williamsons 1939 EK book seems to have come through with the fewest errors.

Hi, The photo is just an example, but the real question is how, within a bavarian Division (for example) the divisional commander decided if he was going to award a bavarian award or the EK2....

I just dont see it.... They were making medals, had a quality control... if it had been an error in the stamp they would have changed it... "Sht! we have KO instead of KQ !" As it is on the EK1 stamp, and the EK2 stamp, it must have been deliberate... but with what logic? No other maker seems to have included their location in their initials. And how did Klein explain it to Quenzer ? "Hey Quenzer... guess what... we are jacking these out by the thousands but leaving your initial off!" Its like Paul Simon pulling a fast one on Art and renaming the "Simon and Garfunkel live in central park" album "Simon/NYC live in Central park" Somewhere there must be a paper with this mystery hidden on it... I am thinking of going up to Berlin for a week in April to visit the Archive mentioned on the SDA forum, just have to see how practicle that would be. Best Chris

I am hoping someone with a bit of WW2 interest will jump in, but even for a "non higher grade" collector, and an Imperial one at that, there are a few things that jump out. I notice the Zimmermann RK on page 457 identified to Deumer. I thought L/15 was accepted as Schickle nowdays, and has been for some time, it is missing from the LDO list which is a bit of an error to be making this late in the game. I would not spend my worst enemies hard earned money on the set of swords and diamonds pictured on 547. I dont have any diamonds kicking around, but refer to my trusty "the iron cross of 1939" by Gordon Williamson... I dont like the Diamonds on Geisslers page 548, or the stamps on the piece on page 510. But maybe some WW2 guys can chime in? For am imprial guy the book is really good, although the EK award doc is NOT for a white ribboned cross. Best Chris