20 hours ago, CRBeery said:

Great to see your armband. I have seen three different ones. Mine, ones like yours with the typical ribbon colors of the Wurttemburg Civil verdienstorden and one with the colors of the Wurttemburg crown orders. As mine is one the tri color band would it be one of the last ones made? Is yours numbered? Thanks!

I don't know how to date the different armbands exactly, other than knowing the one I posted was used 1919-21. The one I posted isn't mine. But, I've looked at both sides and it isn't numbered or stamped, which isn't unusual.

Specifically this is the württembergische Jugendwehr. They existed from 1915 to 1925. They were active during the Freikorps period as auxilliaries of the Einwohnerwehr (Civil Militia). Here is a Freikorps period Einwohnerwehr Württemberg armband with the Jugendwehr shield.

It must be a Third Reich era badge as Zeitner manufactured between 1933 and 1945.

19 hours ago, Bayern said:

In fact was one of two variants weared by Freikorps von Epp when it was transformed in the XXI Brigade of the Provisional Reichswehr .

I believe this was the first type from, as I said June-September 1919, as in the first half of 1919, at least the Bavarian Freikorps and Einwohnerwehr were ardent royalists and anti-Weimar republic who wanted to restore the Wittelsbach dynasty to the throne in Bavaria. Thus, the crown.

7 hours ago, Eric Stahlhut said:

this guy must have been a royalist, as his has a wittelsbach crown above the wappen. perfect headgear for a fahnenweihe or appell! no idea if it is real, but description stated it came from a canadian military museum

 

 

This version was, I believe an early pattern of the Reichswehr helmet from somewhere around June to September 1919.

The helmet in the first picture also has the Bavarian shield on the side as worn by Freikorps Epp when it was in the Reichswehr.

Here a picture of the Drum and Bugle corps of 1. bayer. Reichswehr-Schützen-Regiment 41 (Freikorps Epp) showing a similar Bavarian shield on the side of their helmets.

Two Epp helmets. The one in the top left has a faded lion symbol in red on the front.

Although probably unlikely, could it refer to SVW Bremen (Sportverein Werder Bremen) the football club? It's been around since 1899. if so, maybe it some sort of blazer crest. Just a thought.

I just saw a clearer picture of this arm-badge posted on WAF and it turns out to be some hitherto unknown MGSS badge substituting an MG08/15 light machinegun for the standard MG08.

Possibly something to do with Leibniz University Hannover.

1 hour ago, Eric Stahlhut said:

i found a reference to this award on uwe bruckner's site (ordensmuseum.de). he has a ribbon maker's sample card collection and this award was included with the freikorps items ...it's at the bottom of his 'historische o&e' section.

I saw it. It also had the ribbons for the Feld Ehren-Kreuz which was an unofficial WWI commemorative and the 16er Hacketauer which was an unofficial commemorative medal for the former Imperial Infanterie-Regiment 16. Freiherr von Sparr which were called the "alter Hacketauer" in the 19th century. This regiment formed Freikorps Hacketau in 1919. But that ribbon has nothing to do with Freikorps Hacketau. So, these 2 ribbons along with the so-called "Train Band" from your cross are not related to the Freikorps. Maybe they were just lumped in with Freikorps ribbons because they were from the same post-war period.

I get why you thought that your cross might be Freikorps because of this. The other thing though is that your cross was issued in 1928 on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Prussian Railway Troops. So, the dates don't match the usual Freikorps dates of 1919-21 that one sees on Freikorps awards.

It's still a nice piece and I should think quite hard to find especially with the original ribbon.

This is a very interesting piece. It's unfortunate that there's not much documentation on it. I'd be interested in who has classified this as possibly a Freikorps awards because I very much doubt that. All Freikorps awards have been accounted for and well documented for the most part by Konstantin Nikolaev and Ingo Haarcke in their exhaustively researched books. I believe there is some sort of Freikorps Train troops award (I'd have to look it up). But, this isn't it.

I believe these are ribbons worn by university students. So, I presume these are the university colors.

3 hours ago, peter monahan said:

I don't know anything about VC flags.  But, I do know that Vietnam is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist destination, including among veterans of that conflict.  I also know that it is one of the world's leading producers of cotton clothing.  And, apparently, war souvenirs.  Caveat Emptor!

Agree. Among other things, embroidery art is a major industry in Vietnam with factories of orphan girls pumping out quite exquisite work. A flag like this would be quite easy for them to produce. I don't know if it's legit or not. But, I used to live in Hanoi and there's tons of this stuff in the Old Quarter and near the railways station in the stalls on Le Duan Street. Some of it is genuine. But, a lot of it has been produced for war souvenir hunters. I guess it depends at least in part on provenance.

Infanterie-Regiment „Prinz Friedrich der Niederlande“ (2. Westfälisches) Nr. 15

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanterie-Regiment_%E2%80%9EPrinz_Friedrich_der_Niederlande%E2%80%9C_(2._Westf%C3%A4lisches)_Nr._15

Austro-Hungarian machine-gun corps based on the collar badges of the guy on the left.

It has the coat of arms of Nuremburg.

This is the wrong forum. You need to post it the Imperial orders forum. But, I will tell you that this is just a patriotic, commemorative medal that was likely given out to attendees of the 25 year celebration. Or maybe they had to buy it. If it had a ribbon, at all it likely was red white and black.

The badge is Brigade Nordlitauen (Northern Lithuania).

https://www.axishistory.com/books/36-germany/germany-freikorps/2123-brigade-nordlitauen

A badly damaged, but genuine 2nd class.

16 minutes ago, Alex K said:

Interesting, faking everything now, I was slightly suspicious about the strange pin on the reverse

You're right. The pin is wrong. But, more to the point, it you look closely, you'll see that the badge is cast and too thick. Real ones of this are actually hard to find and go for 250-300 EUR.

The one on ebay is a fake. This cross has been faked a lot in recent years and sold by the Raritätsammlersclub and their minions. The seller selling this one is one of the minions.

Actually, the cat was already out of the bag long ago. There was a discussion about this badge sometime ago on WAF and yet Winkler has not changed his "unknown" description. So, either he doesn't follow the forums, or only follows the German forum, Feldgrau where it hasn't been discussed. In any event, other badges have shown up over the years and eventually I'll find one at a fair price. Even with 30% off, Winkler still wants 200 EUR which is too much for a single collar badge like this. He's had it for sale several times even at a discount and there have been no takers. But, maybe now that we've discussed it someone will buy it. There are a lot of new Freikorps collectors who seem to have more money than sense.

Maybe, I'm splitting hairs here. But, the Zeitfreiwillige der Reichswehr Brigade 4 was part of the Freiwillige Landesschützenkorps , hence the same collar badge except with the Z. I've been collecting Freikorps for 50 years and have been aware of this specific version of the Freiwillige Landesschützenkorps collar badge for a long time. There are other specialized collar badges that have company numbers in them and they are only slightly more expensive than the regular collar. Yes, it's rarer than the standard collar which goes for about 80 EUR. But, still the z badge is worth no more than 150 EUR; nowhere near the 285 that Winkler is asking. He is known for charging absurd prices and I can attest to the fact that all his Freikorps badges are more than double and sometimes nearly triple the market value. Many of Winkler's prices are even double those charged by Weitze who, being advised by well-known Freikorps expert Ingo Haarcke has generally acceptable retail prices for such material, although still considered somewhat expensive by collector standards.

16 hours ago, Simius Rex said:

 A collector who wants this rare badge in his collection badly enough may be willing to pay that kind of price.             

Quite frankly, given there's little actual documentation on this badge (at least that I'm aware of), except what I have provided, I very much doubt that there are very many Freikorps collectors who would recognize this badge, let alone buy it which is why Winkler has had it for years without selling it.

1 hour ago, Simius Rex said:

Geez O Pete!  Talk about an obscure logo for an obscure unit!  It's just mind blowing that a piece of stationery that survived for a hundred years is the clue to Mr. Winkler's  "Z" badge.  And it's also possible that the lapel pin could be for a veteran of this obscure military organization.  So now there are at least two possible Freikorps connections to the "Z" logo.  This is shaping up way better than Zorro or Zeppelin.  Simi   

Hardly an obscure organization. Freiwillige Landesschützenkorps/Reichswehr Brigade 4  had a strength of 13,423. I've seen a few of these Z badges around, but have never been able to pick one up to add to my collection. Winkler's price, like all his prices is ridiculous.