Graf

Thank you Graf,
for writing to me.

Yes, I am Uwe Bretzendorfer from Ludwigsburg, with whom you have done business in the past.
I closed my business a few years ago because of health problems.
But - thank God - I have overcome these problems and I have a lot of fun again with orders and decorations as a collector.

So it will be a great pleasure for me if you and I can talk about all kinds of discussions in the future with you..
My English is still terrible, but the Internet has made great progress - unlike me.

And I would be a happy man if we can address each other as Uwe and Peter.

I translated it with "DeepL" and i hope you can understand it.

Kind regards

Uwe

Hi Uwe,

Thank you for the reply.

It is great that this health problem is no longer an issue for you and you enjoy collecting

You had a nice items in you shop.

I focused my collecting to Bulgarian Orders and decorations I manged to get some very rare items That is mine main focus.  Also  rare models  of French legion of Honour and Belgium Orders,..... and some single Orders from Europe

I sold most of my German Iron Cross, especially the WW2 Period. Here in Australia, unfortunately the Government, under pressure from certain groups, started campaign against WW2 German Items They banned and made criminal offense if someone display WW2 German items Crazy times.

I kept some rare 1914 1st Class Iron Crosses and single items from 1870 and 1957 period

During the Pandemic the last two years Australia was locked down to the rest of the world for 2 years The only way to go overseas was to apply for special permission Melbourne at the same time became the most lock down city in the world Crazy times I stopped the collecting since it was difficult to buy  from overseas. Also it look the market is very slow.at the moment

Otherwise apart from some small mental issues in the family, due to those lengthy lock downs, the life is getting slowly back to normal.

I am very happy to get in touch with you If you want I can send you mine personal email for direct contact

Kind Regards

Peter.

Hello Peter, good to get in touch again.

Shipping to Australia seems to be a problem for the moment as you're not on the list of countries which I can ship to, but sometime in the future things should be normal again.

I'm normally quite reluctant to close auctions as I hate when others do so. But as we have dealt before I believe I can do so, but I would ask the listing price plus postage and the 4% PayPal fee (a bank transfer is without fees within EU so that's why PayPal isn't listed as an option). If this is of interest we can do so but when you'll receive it is unclear, your guess is as good as mine. I may also have a Bulgarian Medal of Merit in Silver mini which perhaps could be of your interest?

Kind regards, Lars

Hi Lars,

Thank you for the reply

The reason I asked you is because our Government put 10% Tax on all sales from overseas on Ebay.

However if there are any doubts for the Post simply forget it  I will leave for times better the now.

It looks like the Post in some parts of Europe does not include Australia at the moment

It is nice to have the mini, however it is not a must

Good Luck with the sales.. I noticed you listed several miniatures

Regards

Peter

Hi Graf,

I'll look into this tomorrow and get back to you.

cheers

Peter

Hi Graf,

You've really opened up a can of questions, but I've contacted one of the authorities on the Royal Order Kansli and he gave me a quick heads up one the various models.

First of all, the categories referred to in Künke's catalogue is not correct i.e. the Order being instituted in 1772 and being the 2nd model. The presumption that this Order originates from the "Swordsknightorder" of Livland instituted 1197 is from a Swdish publication from the 15th century and this story has been cut and pasted through out the years. The Order of the Sword was instituted 1748 and the first type had a small crown between the cross arms (image#1, I had to use a Northstar for illustration). Around 1802 a larger crown was adopted and placed above the tips of the cross arms on a scharnier (image #2). I'll get additional info from my source, but apparently there were about 8 different designs between 1802 and 1832. The transformation to a different crown attached with a built in hinge on an ornamented "holder"?) occured in 1860 and the balls on the edges of the arms 1856 (image #3), although these balls have been found on earlier pieces as well. There were also tiny enamel dots on the crown.

So where does that leave your cross? If we look at the crown it's a dead-ringer for the crown found on the 1847 Olov Orden. Well, IMHO your conclusion seems to place it around 1850, but I'll forward the image and see what I can find out.

cheers

Peter