Chris Boonzaier

Hi, they are all nice and good crosses.... I like them lil shiny things!!! I prefer paper though, especially when I can pinpoint the actions...

Nice crosses... when a guy starts collecting those.... he has a lifetime of colleting ahead of him.... and the big plus to them is 99.99% are original!

The colours are the same, but with different spacing. The thingy seems to be the same as the one on g_deploige's link. Twins they are not... but when next to each other they have the same colour, and I would bet at a few meters away, noone would notice.

The time difference between the award and the signing are sometimes very long with WW1 EK docs, whereas with 1870 and official WW2 ones it is the same date.

I would guess it IS indeed an original Persian rosette thingy and that the UN ribbon was taken as ersatz material for a ribbon that was no longer being made? When I was in Cairo and showed some guys in the Souq a British medal I had bought... to ask if they had any like it... they offered to make me some. Maybe some guy ordered the Persian ribbon from a tailor and he made one with the material he had? Seems to be a long shot... but my medals are mounted on a strip of plastic cut from the sandproof plastic audio cassette boxes used in Saudi Arabia and positioned with super glue.... may not be the official way of mounting them... but looks the same.... You do things with the material you have sometimes.....

That is a nice one. There are a number of variations of this one, mainly concerning what is printed as to the level of the award (Division or Armeekorps). These are also usually bad faders. I have one with vibrant colors, but the rest are faded to light orange. What unit is your guy?

My wild guess would be...... to have the funny little thingies on the front of the ribbon... you would probably be a tailor of some sort.... And becase these ribbons are no longer made, and scarce... and someone ordered one and you had the funny little thingies but no ribbon... that as an industrious tailor.... you would just grab an inch of UN ribon and whip one of these up.... And probably the guy who ordered it could wear it with noone noticing. Probably made up for simple practicle reasons than as a deliberate fake.

How about posting the whole book.... I will send you my address and some stamps :-) What a Killer book!!! Must be worth a fortune... (have cleared a space for it already ;-))

Damn... its like the Doomsday clock counting down here.........:-(

Okay... a difficult question... Unfortunately the statutes are missing from any books I have, so maybe a good public chew over may find the answer. Iron Crosses for folks not engaged in combat in any way and not in the combat zone. Three kinds I can think of 1) the white ribonned cross 2) The black ribonned cross for services in the field (In occupied territory) 3) The black ribonned cross for services in the Heimat (at home) With 2) and 3) we are talking about docs mainly where the "Verdienst" is actually written on the doc, not where we suppose "Well, this guy couldnt have heard a shot fired" The 2) ones seem to be for officials and civilians outside of the borders of the Reich. The 1) and the 3) overlap here a bit.... both are for service in the Heimat (Have not seem a white ribonned cross doc for anyone serving in a military or civilian position outside of germany) ... now who got what? Are all White ribonned guys civilians? I have yet to see one to a soldier. For the 3)... my one of these is to a soldier, for services in a garrison town. Its too few examples to base a definate opinion on... what do you guys think?

I really believe it is a case of "Each to his own" when it comes to collecting. Every collector has the right to decide what turns his particular crank and collecting EKs according to maker mark is just as valid as collecting award documents according to battle. What often suprises me howeve... is how very few people actually collect iron cross documents from WW1. They are not those (yawn) boring WW2 ones that all look alike.... they come in all hapes and colors, many print variations, provide endless opportunity for research..... they ARE a central part of the EK theme.... but dont attract neary as many collectors as the crosses themselves. Is it because of the language barrier? There must be SOME reason why paper leaves so many colletors cold.

cant say off hand as I need to hit the books for things like this, but it is missing quite a chunk on the back (Not sure what the Gunner types call it... them long leggy things at the back....

Its a Lee Metford bayonet from the Boer war WW1 era. If you dont need it, drop me a PM, I have a small side cllection of them :-) Usually there is a unit stamped under the press stud. Best Chris

Looks almost like a 1950s kinda backing !!

I sit here and realise.... that for some reason i managed to get none of these in the end :-(

Hi Steve... did you have any luck in nailing these down?

Has the guy in question got any awards entered on the doc? Thanks Chris

This thread is just toooooo classy to let it die!!!! Anyone else have medlas awarded to men with unusual names??

Hi, his name was Cloete, he was a sharpshooter with considerable skills on the boer side in the Boer war. He was badly wounded and captured by the Brits. in WW1 he commanded "Enslin's Horse" as part of Southern Force in the german south West Africa campaign. Best Chris

The man had a really, really, really interesting war ! Great Units and interesting campaigns... Do all WW2 M have a citation? I dabbled a bit in WW1 MMs and they seldom did. best Chris

A silly question.... did Brit women have their awards mounted differently to the men?

Indeed... but the bandsmen were the ones with little to do once the Regt was in the front line. Not being part of a regular company they seem predestined for it...

without going through all the arguments here...... Is it not POSSIBLE (leave probability out) that old Willi Schmidt at S+L spent many an hour between 1939-1980 making KC frames. Demand from Soldiers, then GIs, then Vets.. alwaysa deman... always a few boxes in the S+l storeroom... Frames Willi made in 1944 were maybe only used in 1958, after the firm had made a few thousand postwar copies with postwar made rims.... A lot of the theories on the cracked rim base themselves on the warehouse "First in first out" system.... what if for whatever reason the "First in, Last out" thing happened.... KC rims are not tomatoes in a supermarket where stock rotation is important....

Indeed.... they must have all been hitting the (rum) bottle ;-)

Agreed... I was confined to barracks once for a weak because when we left Iraq we had to give our desert Cammo back to the stores. Finally released from Duty at about 10am I had to give in a pair if cammies by lunch. The rest of the section had had the day before to wash their stuff, I literally had to strip it off and take it over right away. When the fat bastid in the stores saw them he began to complain. I told him not everyone had spent the last half year sitting on his fat ass. Next day I was on a charge for insolence and confined to barracks for a week. "Misplaced Remark" is a favourite charge... anyway, i was not shot at dawn.... but it was a great example to me of how the "system" works. "Jones, you are guilty, isn't he chaps? " "Yessir he is... shut up Jones, you are only gonna make it worse fer yerself!"