Triadoro

Since the deletion of inactive accounts began, Rick Lundstrom's threads and posts can no longer be found using the Search Function... even by typing-in Guest Rick Research.  Several of his photos have simply vanished.  Some links to his galleries lead to non-existent pages.

It's ironic that in an effort to improve the forum, valuable and highly educational posts of one of the forum's most important contributors can now be accessed with the same level of ease as searching for a needle in a haystack, or accessed not at all.  

18 hours ago, Nicolas7507 said:

This could be the bar of later Generalveterinär Dr. med. vet. Karl Kiesewetter. Born in Gotha, he is listed with EK2, EH3b and HT in the Reichswehr ranklists. In the 1914 ranklist no EH3b is listed yet, but he could have received it after the publication of the ranklist.

Hi and thank you kindly for this identification!  I started this thread 10 years ago and completely forgot that I had this bar in my collection.  Your memory is amazing... certainly better than mine!  

The funny thing about this is, that I encountered Kiesewetter's name and awards on page 188 of the 1932 Ranklist one week ago.  I even wrote down his name.  I remember saying to myself "too bad he has a bravery medal."   I was looking for another combination of awards that included an Iron Cross and a SEHO Knight but didn't have a Hessen Tapferkeitsmedaille.  Clearly, multi-tasking is not one of my strong suits.

Thank you again for this ID !! 

Regards.

So it is quite possible, if not common. You would be looking for an active officer, since a reserve or Landwehr officer would likely have the LD2. He would have gotten the SEHO before the war, possibly while serving in a regiment with a Saxon connection, and been in a Hesse regiment during the war. Another possibility is a recalled regular officer, who entered service after 1897, got the SEHO around the ten year mark, and then retired and moved to somewhere like Darmstadt or Giessen.

I have always believed that complete medal bars tell fascinating stories about military careers and experiences of real soldiers. This is why I favor collecting medal bars over individual medals and orders. It takes a person with your insight and expertise to makes some of these possible scenarios come to life.

Another view...

Another view...

Another view...

Another view...

Another view...

Another view...

Can you show us the back? Also, could you also flip the medals up to reveal the ribbon area below the awards. And how are the medals attached?

I don't like the Hessen ribbon... it looks like that ribbon has seen some manipulations, see at the height of the medal and the fact that the re-positioning of this medal has left some traces. Is it on Ebay? A picture of the back would help to give more appropriate comments.

I'm not sure, of course, if this is a mid-1930s bar. But I do't see that many red flags. Precedence on the other hand isn't that much of an issue, from my experience.

So it is quite possible, if not common. That said, I think it is just as likely that someone removed a wartime SEHO with swords, as Claudius suggests.

I now have the medal bar in my hands. I was able to examine it and photograph it. It is my opinion that there is no evidence to suggest that this bar has been manipulated.

The stitching, the thread, the backing look good. The SEHO is sewn into place. The others are hung on hooks behind the ribbons.

I could not pass-up buying it. I got it for much less than the SEHO3b alone is worth!

I would ask what he did to earn that award at such a young age, and why we don't see more examples of this on other medal bars.

It is likely that he might have received it because of who his family was and/or who he knew ... not what he did.

There are two K.u.K awards that were notorious for being given to the "Who they knew" group... the nobility, the gentry, i.e. the people from the right families. These were the Order of the Iron Crown and the Order of Franz Josef. (The Iron Crown Order could only be given to persons of noble ancestry.)

To those who have knowledge about the Saxon house orders I ask: Is it possible that the SEHO might have been awarded in this way on some occasions?

Received a picture of the back. He plans to eventually list it and some other medals on Ebay. Will ask for further pictures.

I will try to get more pictures from the seller and post them. He did mention that the medals were suspended from black metal spring-hooks.

And a picture of the back...

The bar is 100% original and untouched, but it is puzzling to me that there are no swords on this brave soldiers SEHO3b especially in light of the Hesse "Tapferkeit" medal that is present.

Comments?

Bad photos indeed... it looks like the center is stamped from thin tin as opposed to cast?

Looks like a Latvian fake to me.

I would really like to see better pictures but that core design is not

one that I recognize as a known original.

Here is a closeup picture of the back. And yes... no doubt this piece is a fake. My intent in featuring this item was to encourage collectors to look for illogical oxidation colors and patterns (simple metallurgy) in evaluating the authenticity of a piece.

This is the back of the same EK. The ferrous-oxide stains in the places that they occur don't make sense.

Pictures below of an EK1 featured on Ebay...

Note the green stains on the front which indicate the presence of copper-oxide. But there is no copper based material in an EK... right???