Stogieman

And a little bit clearer here:

I believe this is your man here:

The reverse.

I'm really not buying anything anymore. Taking a break from collecting since I gave up my business about a year ago. But when an old friend in Saxony eMailed me about this bar.... well, I couldn't really say no, could I? It would have been impolite! I can count on my hands the number of Mecklenburg Long Service Crosses I've actually seen mounted....

Bernhard! Fantastic. These were so hard to find then and I can count on one hand the number I have seen since i first sold my collection. Foolish mistake at the time, but no choice.... here's another of my favorite shots showing two variations of the cases used to issue the Knight's Cross of The Order.

And some did for sure.... here's one of my favorite pix. The General (one of 11, we never figured it out better than that)

Yep... if it was Saint Henry Order... I bought it. Singles, loose, solo bars, groups, documents, cases, ribbon bars... I had it real bad.....

And! That's what the forum is all about! Collectors helping collectors. My very best to you both!

The other side of the case.... when I wasn't spending every nickel I could on St. Henry... I had an alarming addiction to cased anythings....

Remember when men were men and The Good Ricky (aka The Good Twin?) collected Saint Henry?? Every once in a blue moon I pull out these 2 pictures and just sigh for awhile..... Yes, that is a Commander's Cross on the top shelf, far left.

Here's a shot of my old cross in gold, cased, no swords. Even had the outer box from the jeweler!!

Hallo Solomon, if he was an "old-school" NCO with long service, he would have been eligible for one of the honor crosses of the house order. My original "gut reaction" call when I saw the bar was "Gold Honor Cross with Swords"... hence why it was missing (they were real gold) and hence my failure to bid... I know I've had 3 in all my years and only one gold with swords. They are very hard to find and quite beautiful. I think the gold content was marked "585" on the back. Any way you look at it, it's an impressive bar and one to be proud of... I can't tell you how close I was to bidding... I bailed out with less than a minute to go... Just didn't want to start a new project!!

I would expect that if "Bohemia" had been used at all; it would have been used on items manufactured strictly for export. Sort of like Hummels marked "Germany" as opposed to "Deutschland" during the 1930's. Same with after the war... Items were marked "US Zone Germany", "Occupied Japan" and eventually "Western Germany"... but for export as at the time US law (at least, I cannot comment on other countries) required the country of origin to be clearly marked on imported goods. Pre-WW2 items were marked "Germany"... sometime in the 1950's "Made in Germany" started to appear. These marks have been useful gauges to manufacturing eras in porcelain, bisque and other wares whether china or children's toys for some time....

Yes, I'm glad I backed out of bidding at the last moment... I had slightly different thoughts though... I felt the missing second piece was a Brunswick Honor Cross with Swords to The Henry The Lion Order and last place was a Brunswick Long Service?

I had this little gem in my hot little hands today just as it came out of the shipping box. It was a fun visit! I was surprised by how heavy it was. The case & document were superb!

Hi Rob, nice star indeed and a rather difficult variation to find. Congratulations!

The article may be found here: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?autocom=galler...q=sc&cat=23 Page five (5) under "device gallery" will show fake spanges and real ones.

I would tend to think someone added the '39 spange after the fact to "dress it up"... also, I don't really like the look of the spange itself. The head of the eagle is too poorly designed/shown which makes me question the authenticity of the spange itself... for examples of known original miniature spanges please see the Lundstr?m article on ribbon bars in the Imperial section of the forum. So, you have a bar, probably original, to a guy who was KIA after received both grades of the 1914 EK and a Hohenzollern...... that somebody went and screwed with after the fact and ruined the bar.

The badge was authentic. Meybauer and one of only three (3) real ones I've seen kicking about. Despite the usual lousy scans of (you know where) it was a real one. If you won, you outbid me to get it.

The oakleaves are not clear enough... cross looks fine and that's a nice long piece of original ribbon. Condition's not so great. Euro exchange rate not so good.... but.

As I said... the quality is a little off. In all my years I have seen only one (1) that IMO was authentic. It was a Civil War piece and being sold on a German website of all places...... It was north of 5K if I recall correctly. This one was just too funny to not point out to you guys!

And the reverse:

This lot was recently sold in Germany for 170- Euro. The quality looks a little bit off to me....

Thanks Mate, missed the link. Nice little on-line memorial!

Hi Chris, did you win? A lot of Euros for the condition ??