Stogieman

And the reverse of the document:

details: The actual citation. As an aside, in addition to a TWM, he was bumped two (2) full grades from Unteroffizier to Vice-Feldwebel. "wegen Tapferkeit vor dem Feinde" an almost unheard of action in the Imperial German Army. Later, Vielstich would end up an S/A Major-General..... naughty, naughty nazi.

Details: His Name

OK, Remember the scene in "Lawrence of Arabia".... where the German plane roars up over the dunes and blasts the dates out the Brit/Arab encampment? Here's the document to one of the two guys who actually pulled off that raid....

Well, I figured the fact that it was a bad fake as a given.... but we have quite a mismatch, ribbon to cross. The ribbon is clearly the Oaks ribbon, with the extra stripe... but no oaks on the cross. I'd still like to know where the hell these are all coming from. No-one ever cops to knowing who sells the fakes in the first place, poisoning the collector market forever....

Amazing display of a little-known field of expertise Ed. Most impressive!

Thanks Greg.... many of you will recognize these items as sitting in your own cases! Many wonderful things have passed through my hands over the years!

Nice bars from BOTH Saschaw & Claudio!!

No oaks....

I don't think you can determine anything regarding authenticity of the piece with these photos. I would want to see many, many more and much larger/more detailed images before I dropped a dime on this piece!!

It's interesting that some of the groups don't match the photos/names they are attributed to. Also, or is it just my eyes, some of the orders shown don't look quite right. has the museum's collection been monkeyed with??

Can anyone tell us where they can buy these from the source? How exactly are they constantly filtering into the market?

I'd concur and a popular eBay ruse. WW2 era mount "enhanced" with 1870 pieces.

Hi Ferdinand, outstanding photo. When was it taken? Interesting that on both these Cavalier sets it appears the 2.Kl. has no gilding left?!

Saschaw, I would not be so quick on yours... when did your Father purchase the bar? The mounting style is a legitimate, WW2 era mount. The problem in the last few years is the vast quantity of original materials that were flushed out into the market and the relative ease of duplicating this style has resulted in a veritable plethora of new, put-together bars. This causes many of us to suspect everything in this style, often times resulting in good pieces being denigrated for nothing. Now, what becomes very interesting, IMO, is that this very bar is in the precise, correct mounting precedence for an Austrian... Note that his Austrian Awards precede the W?rttemberg SBM... No German would do that...... I think there's a possibility the bar is legit and am not ready to condemn it just yet...

Hi Richard, good to have you here with us!!

The Non-Combattant EK2 can be fun to chase...

And another, older example:

However.... having said all this, we need to still address the tri-fold. Whilst uncommon with bavarian Orders & medals, it's not unheard of.

Another, 4.kl. cased

Additional example..

Some examples. Note the color/width of the stripe...

The blue doesn't look quite a match to other statute ribbons I have owned and passed forward. The blue is typically much, much deeper.

The EK2/Mini pair that began this thread seems to be run through ebay.de at least once every month. Identical, or very similar, but every month some variation of the above is auctioned off. Food for thought.

Hi Gordon, is that a split in the corner of the lid?? If the case can't be propped to hold the cross i cannot imagine what elese the hook was for.... unless once upon a time the case actually held two medals... ??