Blitz

It has the signs of beign a jubileum case for sure. The case looks very familiar, but I can't quite remember witch jubileum medall I've seen inside one of these...

Well done Paul!

Working...

Workin..

Very well done Claudio!

The reverse. And if there is interest, I can show you the big case..

More detail..

My smallest family member. Judging from the company it's been keeping, It's either a commander or a 1st cl.

The merit cross in it's case..

2nd cl. with X ww1 issue, sorry I don't have more pics at hand on this one.. I'll have to take more during the holidays..

Reverse..

Allright, as per request.. 2nd cl. RK w/o X, 1870's..

And reverse.. I would post them all, but that would feel like hijacking this thread..

My 1st cl. RK w/o X, also gold.

reverse..

In the spirit of sharing.. My 1st cl. RK with X, gold.

Thanks so much guys! As far as I can tell without my loope in hand, it does have Zimmermans mark.. Very interesting..

And a shot of the markings on the ring. Sadly this is best that I can do at the moment.. There appears to be a number "722" and a series of other markings and the word "silber". Nothing much I can tell fro these, I hope someone else will have better luck. Thanks for watching and I'm eagerly awaiting your comments.

An overview of the cross with it's nice long neckribbon...

Reverse..

Closeup of the obverse..

The case with the monogram of Michael I, the last king Romania. He is still alive by the way and has a home in Romania along with his other home is Switzerland..

I have been an Imperial man for the past two years after my conversion into Baden, but now Iv'e decided to try something new for a change. Romania. When one thinks of Romania, I'm sure most US and western-european people only think of communism and Romania as a people's republic, part of the Eastern Block. But they forget or don't know that before that Romania was a Kingdom and a kingdom whose ruling house's name was Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. That is, a branch of the same family who ruled Germany untill 1918. So there was a Hohenzollern still ruling in a european country up to 1947, when the communists took over. Interesting no? I first became intrigued with Romania due to it's fascinating history (particularily the connection with Prussia) and the surprizing beauty of it's orders two years ago. The Romanian crown order beign one, but also the orders like the order of Carol I, military merit order of Michael the Brave and the order of Romanian Star. Back then I just started collecting Imperial Germany and there was no reason to pick another field at the time. But the interest has been there, sometimes nagging at me for two years untill I decided to do something about it three weeks ago. So I started to search the web for books on the subject, as it's my principle to have references at hand BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING. I found two romanian books by name, but failed to locate any for sale and Kieltmanns Phaleristik Rum?nien band 1 from the 1970's, witch could be found, so I bought it. I've since learned that it's still the standard reference book on romanian awards. Anyways.. ..After It came in the post and I read it through a couple of times, I came to a decision to expand my area of interest to the Romanian kingdom. My primary reason for this was (besides the fact that the orders are mostly still cheap and very beatifull) that my Imperial collection has reached a point where I'm not interested in the cheap, common awards that I could buy in an instant and the ones I'm interested in, aren't financially within my grasp. So this is my way of breaking a deadlock. It doesn't mean that I've stopped collecting imperial germany, it just means that my collecting has to adopt to my life's situation, studying not beign the most fiscally sound thing to do from a collecting point-of-view. So, to make a long story short (too late I guess) I saw this item and bought it. A commanders cross of the romanian Crown order, cased naturally. These can be divided into two types; 1st type was awarded from 1881 to 1932 and it had a Crown in it's center and the monogram of Carol the first between the crosses arms as opposed to the second type (1932-1947) witch as you can see, has the setup reversed. The second type was also divided into a civil and military division, witch are easily told apart by the military division's crown as civil division crosses do not have one. To my knowledge all types could be awarded with swords, as mine was. This cross also has the distinctive wartime ribbon, with the golden stripes on it's edges. The order had five classes: Grand cross, Grand officer, commander, officer and knight. The commanders cross was awarded to colonels. The order aswell as most Romanian orders were awarded to other soldiers from other Axis powers and they are quite common with germans. This example was apparently made by Monetaria Nationala in Buckarest and awarded during ww2. The quality isn't the best possible, but I still find the combination very attractive, don't you? Ps. Thank you so much for helping me out Dragos! My level of knowledge wouldn't be the same without your assistance.

Beautifull. Elias L?nnrot was awarded with PLM for sciences and arts in 1872 and Artturi Virtanen in 1971. Two finns so far..

One can only be impressed.