Stogieman

Marcus, I cannot imagine this packet being anything other than real. Show me 200 in the next month and that might change my mind, but if I picked this up at a show, I'd be quite happy with it. IMO, materials, printing, design are all consistent with multiple variations on other/known original packets.

The only good thing I can say about this piece is it was cheap.

Fabulous piece Ralph.... not only a very hard to find medal, but an incredibly rare case.... fabulous find!

with respects to the original bar that we started with.... a Russian friend of Daniel's, who apparently doesn't read this forum, has bid this piece in excess of 300- Euro. How incredibly sad is that?

.... and this just goes to show you the value of joint, world-wide research as well as this forum! very cool and much thanks to Daniel, Glenn & Rick for putting a name on this face!

I'm sorry, but I think you have made a serious error in altering this bar. If you look quite closely, you now have a base-metal (tombak) eagle, not a gilded one like the one right next to it. Since this bar was basicly mint and unused, it was made the way it was, with the full intent of the owner (and maker) that that was a silver eagle. Now this piece is altered from what it was intended to be. I would not recommend to anyone that they do this.

Hi Mike, neat album. I think it's always a pretty special thing when any album turns up intact. Far too much of this type of history is being ripped apart for maximum profit these days.

....... and a nice Prussian General!

A nice pair of Carte de Visites. First up a W?rttemburger with a very impressive rack of awards!

I don't think they're "uglies".... I think it's pretty darn neat to see pieces like this........ just like it is to get those parade-mounted medal bars with the EK2, etc. on backwards!

Here's a friend's rather hard to find Mecklenburg FFK2 on a Non-Combattant ribbon!

Found it!

My Evil Twin might have a scan of this somewhere, sorry for the pix, tough to shoot fire-gilt with my equipment!

Ta-Dah!

Actually, you'd be pretty surprised at what went through, even Imperial! I have pix in my archive of a Mecklenburg FFK2........ with the ?se soldered on the bottom arm! I've had a number of 1870 EK2's with radical tilt to one of the arms.... and they were issued that way!

But wait! There's more!! Not only his bar, his photo, but an astonishing group of portraits...... as well! PROOF that he was... Jesse Jackson's daddy! [attachmentid=9162]

Not the same bar you say?? [attachmentid=9181] Well, thanks to the miracles of modern scanning technology.......... and to the astonishing technical expertise of Amazing Ricky Vision? the (real) "Evil Twin" shows this shocking revelation!! [attachmentid=9159] El Cheapo simply INSERTED his two postwar awards onto his wartime medal bar seen here! [attachmentid=9160]

Here's the reverse of his medal bar:

Our Major racked up an impressive group of awards during WW1... Both Classes of the Prussian EK2, both classes of the Oldenburg Friedrich August Cross, a pair of Hanseatic Crosses, etc. Not bad for a Battalion Commander! Our Major resigned his commission and abruptly left the service before New Year's Day, 1919. Here's where it gets interesting..... How frugal can you be??

This wonderful group was sold by one of our german friends a few weeks back.... described as "Medal bar & Photos of a Major" (only)... But sometimes, you get lucky. In a scrawl on the backs of several photos, we are able to ID (& confirm) him as Major Alfred Meyer-Vogt of Foot Artillery Regiment 20!

Rick Research is "The Evil Twin"

Very nice Don, not one I've seen before. Concur on the local issues.

As an aside, here yet again is one of those most fun pieces that RR's ability to pour through the rank/honor lists put a name on this bar. The Combination of WW1 awards would only have been possible to exactly 2 people. The second was a major fighting in Poland as a Pioneer...... logical process of elimination would have had him with an EK2, not KVK2wX, tah-dah! General! As a second aside, despite the best tutoring available, I still cannot "read" these lists, symbols and cryptic notes as my Twin does. He is a wizard, probably with a pact to some evil spirit that has given him the gift he has

Claudio, I don't think they were Italian. None of his duty stations would have set him up for that (??) Bob, can you post the Bio details as well?