Chris Boonzaier

Hi, the bar and document are to two different men as you can see on the link. best Chris

and the medal bar....

Ooops, I forgot zo include a pic of the doc that lead to all that writing :-)

Hi, I think the Train had spiked helmets? Also, landsturm had very different looking Tschakos. best Chris

OK, forget it, the Kav. is more logical.

Can post 21 be "Korps." by a long stretch of the imagination. Armee Korps had a Stabswache.

OK, I am a doc guy. And I started out with a simple document with the action entered on it... "On the Avre..." WWI is a confusing mixture of rivers "On the Somme" "On the Aisne" "On the Ailette" "On the Marne""On the Avre" Places "In the Champagne""At Rheims""In front of Verdun""At St Mihiel" But I was stuck with "On the Avre" for this one..... So.... I wanted to understand where this award was made and what the Unit was up to. The result is what I consider to be the perfect example of what i picture a page of my site to be... 1) Militaria displayed. 2) The story behind it 3) Links to an easily understandable overview of the "Big picture" 4) Further links to related topics (Other awards to the man, to men he served with) The 2) is a description of the fighting at the place in question (Regimental level) the 3) puts it in the context of the bigger battle (Army level) and there are maps that help follow at both levels. http://www.kaiserscross.com/41815/112201.html Thats how I like my iron crosses... all paper and wrinkely.... ;-) You dont need to know anything about the man... but you can find out about the battle.... Hope you enjoy it ;-)

Hi, thanks, thats the page I needed (top one). I am trying to figure out if mine is the original now...

I think I have an almost automatic right to this since I have the Medal in the BADen thread ;-)

Does anyone have the Baden Ehrenbuch for the war? If so, is the 214th Division mentioned? Especially the 214 Pionier Battalion, 424 Minenwerfer company. Thanks in Advance, Chris

I owe you one :-)

OK... another give away should be the fact that he has a lebel (and a non fitting butchers bayonet) so as Chip says probably belonging to the Verkehrstruppen. Luftschiffer, Telegraph would both be possible? Both are units that kinda slip through the cracks and are unnoticed... When I see a Tschako I always think... J?ger!!

Hi, the KFM was awarded 1280 times. A guy named Frank Zelosko was a book out with about 1100 of the citations. It has the name, unit and dzte of dirth as well, the above is just closely cropped. Best Chris P.S. this should not be confused with the common Baden Verdienst medal.

Hi Paul, I think this is for the Verdienst medal? If I am not mistaken, if this is on the bar there must be two of these ribbons. Best Chris

;-)

Anyone got a spare baden ribbon ;-)

Kindly provided by Sascha... It is a nice award for 3rd Ypres/Flanders/Bloody Paschendaele The Company was in the line during the Flanders battle from the 08-20th of August 1917. Stapf participated in all the actions including the "Gro?kampftag" on the 16th of August. On this day the company was in action with four medium Minenwerfer. As the British broke into our lines that day the Minenwerfer position had to be abandoned. On the 17th of August the company sent out three patrols to see if the Werfer had fallen into enemy hands. The patrols returned unsuccessfully. At this point Vizefeldwebel (At that time Unteroffizier) Stapf volunteered to find the positions. Although the way was only known by map he succeeded on the afternoon of the 17th of August in finding all four Werfer positions. Its is thnks to Stapf's brave action that the company was able to (in the night of the 17th-18th of August) recuperate two of the Werfer and the barrel and Lafette of a third. Stapf led the company to the positions. A Fourth Werfer had been totally destroyed. Stapf has been recommended for the award one time before.

front...

Well, I bought this this week (and have another one coming ;-)

A thought to this.... How much is this bar worth? A few years ago we would have said EUR500/USD500...... then we came to EUR500/USD600... then it would have been EUR500/USD700... Someday it may be EUR500/USD1000. The value of the bar may stay the same, it is the value of currencies that change. If we take the EUR as the stable measure of the hobby.... the bar may be worth EUR500 and whatever rapidly increasing amount of $ you need to buy EUR500. If you take the USD as the stable measure of the hobby, bars like this will become cheaper and cheaper to European based collectors. This will of course not swing with European based dealers as there stock will decrease in value. I think the stronger currency will always rule the hobby. Notice how Canadian dealers are suddenly using Cdn$ for their prices !!!!! I would say.... the price of the bar is not expensive, its just the weak $ that makes it seem so. Let the $ fall another 80% and I will be logging on the the Rittmeister to buy some stuff... unless he has changed his prices to Euros that is....

Indeed... some do consider it bad news.... Thank god Mugabe is still there to keep things running eh! Saint, are the Bush jackets as expensive as the Bush hats? I remember Rhodie Cammo in the late 80s in France was expensive as hell... then somehow became much cheaper in the 90s?

Hey Bryan... You only collecting passports to girls that look tasty? Nest Chris

Naaah... the sites rubbing off on you ;-)

That is interesting!! I did not know the Rhodies wore slouch hats at all!!

Lets see the individual pics then :-) A nice group... would be great if they had thought of award docs back them as well!!!