Robin Lumsden

It was never awarded.

That's a nice picture Chris. It isn't often you see these patches with the officer piping.

.....worn by the flag bearers.

...and here's the centrepiece of the gorget......

.....and some other bits.....

Unfortunately not. But I do have an example of the later woven version. Here it is......

So.....this cloth EK is my all-time favourite (and there's another on the reverse side of the flag!) Not for bravery or anything like that.......but when would you find another?

And a close-up of the skull.

Here's the same type of flag being carried by the Wehrwolf in it's earliest days.....1923-24.

Here it is again.......from a different perspective.

Here's a woollen EK2 I recently picked up.......

You have to wonder if anyone seriously thinks they will get an original PLM off eBay. It's like bidding on eBay for a VC. Not moneywise, but you know what I mean.

Publication has apparently been delayed until the end of November at the earliest. It looks like one of these books where they take advance orders to pay for the publishing!

I agree. It's the same as the diamond badges that appeared in the grips of reproduction HJ knives about 30 years ago.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Ed. It seems to me to be entirely possible that a police officer of his rank would receive the Prussian award in that grade for looking after royal security..........even if it was something of a 'diplomatic trinket'.

'Unsporting'??....... perish the thought, old bean! Seriously though, in this particular case I think it's pretty unlikely that any of the bidders had even heard of this forum. I also use a sniper.....it's the ONLY way to bid, and wholly ethical in my opinion.

It was actually interesting to watch the bidding. There were two very determined guys (I wasn't one of them, I hasten to add) who were bidding against each other for the whole week (starting well before I posted this thread).......then along comes a sniper and wins the group! I think it could well have been the same guy who got the Freikorps group last year.

Unfortunately.......no.

It sold for 625 Euro.

Thanks Rick. These minis are on eBay at the moment......last couple of hours of the auction and the bids are rocketing.

To me, that photo says 'RZM', not 'REM'. That said, it's not one I'd be happy with.

I was looking through Woolley's excellent Freikorps book this morning and had a closer look at the photo of Berthold's adjutant.......Hauptmann Phillip, in his police uniform. The medal group he is wearing has all four of the awards above in full size (along with a few others). His Order of St. Anne is the Christian variety. So at least it's confirmation that the St. Anne awards were given to the Freikorps of the Iron Division.

Exactly the point I was trying to make!

That's my thoughts too. I don't know much about Russian awards, but I would have thought that 'non-Christian' meant just that.........most of these Freikorps types were nihilists! In any event, isn't it likely that the White Russian army distributed these Czarist awards without too much deference to their originally intended purpose? I would have thought that one Russian trinket would have been much like another so far as a German mercenary was concerned.

Yes. I don't see why not. Unusual, but not impossible. Even Hitler was 'sympathetic' to Jews who had won the Iron Cross in the Great War.