Stogieman

Badge & Booklet together

Battushig # C 05

Mongolian Partisan Badge #4 with Original Issue Booklet.

mravery ( 285) US $1,200.00 Dec-27-05 15:40:04 PST

cnw1981 ( 230) US $1,200.00 Dec-28-05 10:42:23 PST

yet.......... a number of our fellow forumites have bid on this bar.

OK, there's other issues here as well........

No Long Service

No Jubilee Medal

(unmarked HHOwX? really?)

Hi Vic, welcome aboard! Nice little group to your Oberst!

Because they do not know any better.........

I wish all of you the very best of the New Year and I invite each and every one of you to post the one BEST item you brought home for your collection. For my part, I offer up this 1870/1866 Non-Combattant Bar. To me, the one absolute best piece I bought in 2005!

And, an additional example courtesy of Niemann?, Hamburg

That is only because you have not watched him lick them........... eeewwweeeee yuck!

Now, having said all this...... the other thing I find very difficult to accept is that this bar was made prior to 1897 and shows absolutely no indication of any type of age at all. It looks like it was made yesterday..... I have handled a decent number of pre-1890 bars and no matter how crisp, how clean...... they do not look like this at all...

And the reverse: (sorry for the size, but the detail is important!)

Additional proper scans of an MEZ I once owned.

Reverse of same........ note the difference in patina and appearance. This cross was STRIPPED off a complete bar that was awarded to a Prussian during the 1866 era and included a pre 1870 Turkish Medjiji Order....... It was an amazing bar, now destroyed forever except in the memory of those of us who will not forget these people who do this.......

Here's an undisputable original, also awarded in 1866:

DING DING DING!!!!!!! First try is absolutely correct. The MEZ has a more "ball-shaped" ?se and the one shown here is way too thin to be correct. Close, but not quite the right shape. Even for a piece that the seller claims was awarded in 1866. In addition, the seller told me that "Please, note that the medal is marked "AW" in the medallion rim for the jeweler Anton Werner."

Whoops, major problem there as these were only made by Wagner.....

I don't know, you have to watch him very carefully....... he will lick anything you bring over to scan...... kind of like my kid who licks her leftover slice of pizza so no one else can eat it....... maybe Rick licks everything so no one else can have it?

Heiko, there have not been miniatures on any auction house on-line in the past year or longer............. other than one Venezuala bar from Nordwind on Militariaweb for 350- Euro.

The Afrika Bars are an entirely different animal from the China Bars. Rick has a bar that has two bars, of two different sizes on it. We'll do a comparison next week. Rick has even promised to lick the bars.

We shall see. My point is, if these are fakes, why are we not seeing them on a weekly basis as is with all the other fakes we know about. In the past 5 years I have seen exactly three examples of any ribbon bar with any clasp. Never mind the deluge one would expect with a faked item. Rick research will examine the clasps next week and make proper scans. Until then, we shall all just have to wait.

In the meantime, I'd like to see every example of an authentic and fake Afrika clasp posted. Obviously, some must exist somewhere. I think when you are dealing with an extremely rare object, one should put much more effort into documenting a position one way or another via multiple examples to reinforce the contention as opposed to just saying "sorry, I don't like it so it must not be real".

Rick R. has several bars with known/real bars from this era, as opposed to China, which we will compare with next week.

In the interim, Happy New Year!

This reminds me of the full-sized Afrika bar Heiko posted that he did not think was real......... since that time, not a single example of one of those bars has appeared..... so we have someone who has put forth substantial effort and expense to fake a bar, but is willing to only sell one bar every year to recoup his investment? A patient crook? I find that very difficult to accept.

Your final clue:

Reverse of suspect bar:

I don't think this bar is real....... who can tell me why?

Good Morning Heiko, why don't you show us all the fake clasps for ribbon bars? Thanks!!

Maybe green is better....... Kermit certainly thinks so!