redeagleorder

Ah well, mistakes do happen

@ Saschaw - thanks for that info, wasn't aware that doctors at the front received non-combatant awards but the combatant medal. @ Sergio - Thanks for bringing these examples to light. How about someone posts them in the fakes thread so that more people see them and are aware? Regards Matthew

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Making fake bars to fool people already angers me. But spoiling real and original bars of men who earned them to make a few more bucks....

Strange that he got a combatant 1870-1871 medal. Does this mean he was a frontline medal? Anyway, a very rare and beautiful combination!

I've heard that Waldeck didn't....

I must say I love his objectivity when it comes to comparing 'western' and 'communist' soldiers. lol

Wow! Do you know who it belonged to?

Should be able to narrow it down with such a combination. Probably someone in the navy. Very nice ribbon bar!

And sometimes not even that...

War Merit Medal from Lippe-Detmold. A total of 1708 were issued (or thereabouts) , but since it is a home front medal it is one of those awards which is actually rarer on the combatant ribbon, like the one shown. Normally i wouldn't set much stock in a loose medal, but in thise case the ribbon is sewn to the medal loop, not passed through it, and the ribbon is ripped in half. It was probably on a medal bar and ripped off . A total of 459 were issued on the combatant ribbon. Matthew PS: sorry for the bad reverse picture. if anyone wants i can try post a better one tomorrow.

My one and only hanseatic bar. I have a soft spot in my heart for these awards, and all the bars shown here have been great! Matthew

Unfortunately I've got nothing to add to this thread except a congrats for having so much aviation items!

And here is its counterpart from Saxe-Meiningen. Matthew

A very nice medal bar! I've never seen the braunschweig cross mounted on a medal bar before.

I don't think the pour le merite could be worn with civilian clothes, only in unifrom. In fact pour le merite winners had to wear a pour le merite at all times, and so many used a miniature on civilian attire.

The medals often have some initials of the maker on the back of the swords. This could easily have been the soldier's sole award, unlike certain other states Bavarian soldiers did not require an EK before receiving this medal.

Here is the only one I have. The person who wore it probably never heard the sound of guns fired in anger. Edit: Sorry if this is slowing your computer down but it is not letting me reduce picture size!! Any idea how. I tried saving it as a smaller image but it is not letting me either!

I know that you knew, but perhaps some other members didn't

Ironically the person who is selling the bar saschaw shows is the same one who ripped apart the other bar I started the thread with in February.

Taking into account the german, austrian and perhaps spanish (not sure) medical awards, probably a doctor or some such. The lifesaving medal may also point towards this (though not necessarily).

@Irish Gunner - I think that is a lifesaving medal Why are the hungarian and austrian commemorative medal mounted so far apart! It is true that after 1938 Austrian awards were considered German and not 'foreign', but it is still mounted away from the other Austrian medals. This person got around quite a lot before WW2, Czechoslovakia and Austria. But no actual WW2 awards? Even for a doctor, as this person seems to be, that is pretty strange. If the price is right, see if the pieces themselves are original and decide. But as a medal bar I wouldn't recommend.

It depended on a lot of things. Sometimes states had their own precedence awards. For example, Mecklenburg-Schwerin regulations were: Prussian war time awards, mecklenburg war time awards, other states wartime awards, etc... Others, like Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had no rules of their own. In this case the person was more likely from hamburg, sunce he mounted the hanseatic cross before the wurttemberg medal.When quite a number of medals are mounted on the same medal bar, precedence of the awards not from prussia and the wearer's state were often worn in order of importance of the state. Therefore, if we have someone from from Hamburg with bavarian and schaumburg-lippe awards, he will usually wear those from Bavaria (second biggest state with own army) in front of those of Schaumburg-Lippe (smallest state with 50000 people). And sometimes there are bars with no particular order which are proven original. One must remember that the wearers were human like us. If they valued a medal more than another, than they would mount it where they wanted and ignore the regulations. An example is the KVK of WW2, which although it could be awarded to civilians it was stipulated that it had to be worn in front of WW1 awards (except the iron cross). A veteran of WW1 with state medals he got for bravery would often ignore this and mount it behind them... As you have said, there are also some cases where they were mounted by dae awarded or even alphabetically! Welcome to the confusing, bizarre yet very rewarding world of medal bar collecting

Forgot to mention.... very nice medal bar!