Ulsterman

Thanks Kev: I suspected it was as such-not bad for $1 US. I'll probably send it to Rick L. as a happy 55th birthday pressent. he likes this sort of stuff.

I got these at a flea market in the USA while on business last week. The top ribbon bar I'm certain is Italian-given the WW1 campaign medal-but the first ribbon has the look of the medal of merit-but the stripes aren't white; dye run from damp or something different? The enamel I have no clue, but suspect is police. The WW2 US bar is a classic enlisted, wartime bar.. Any thoughts or comments?

A teaching mement ! What Bavarian units were there that would allow Uzzr. Beard to have both colonial campaign medals sans bars?

Yeah-but with the Zeal medal it screams-"Butler" or some such type. The Czarina was from Hesse and the Zeal medals/ St. Stanislaus shows up all over the place in photos pre-war.

No- add 10 years to that date - IR 121 ???

No bars either-maybe a sailor? GREAT photo.

A disgruntled Hanovarian perchance? No- My guess is a Wurttembergian officer who entered service @1875+.

Good idea. I would also invite you to "tag it" by adding the photo of the bar to the OMSA web sites' medal bar section. There it should live on a decade or so-or maybe much longer, depending upon how technology evolves (don't you love these memory sticks?). In the USA high end collectors are now filing UCC papers for specific bars-establishing a permannent trail of provenance and insurability.

Great photographs. I too would like to see a close up of that China/?/LS bar.

Nice German mounts there. You got a good deal at the flea market. I ahve seen a number of Wehrpasses where the Crusade medal is the only medal a German soldier got-usually to Nachrichten types. I have never seen one awarded to a civvy-but somebody in the USA is doing research on these awards over in the archives this Summer.

An illustration:

Gerhard Meyer? If so, in 1931 he was a Korvettenkapitan at the Kiel Arsenal. He's certain to have made Kapitan zur See and probably Konteradmiral 9 years later. Other s have the Admirals book and can tell you more. Great bar.

I actually have a spiffing Wehrpass to a medical Doctor who almost fits this bar. He served as a "Feldhilfsarzt" in Berlin from September 1918 to October, 1920. Later he gets a noncom EK2 in 1921 upon release (his only WW1 medal), becomes a MD sometime in the 1920s, is recalled in 1939 and ends up in Russia. He also got the Bulgarian and Hungarian WW1 medals in the Spring of 1941 (!) to flesh out his HK (1936) and a Westwall (1940) and a KVKx (1942). Now if he'd been a Nazi official.......

Nafzigers ' press brought out a soft cover book last year that summarizes Cron well- and adds all sorts of odd tidbits. The English is stilted, but it's worth the money. Cron was available from the History Bookseller only a few months ago for @ $35. US.n

You outbid me on that bar. Well done. The noncom EK2s are all over the map, but I remember seeing somewhere that 10,000 of the 13,000 were awarded post 1918 and that the vast majority went to civillian types. Commonly seen references in ranklists are to medical officers, but I have seen docs of them awarded to all sorts-notibly engineers& bureaucrats (FEMALE NURSES, naval architects, airship chemists, Reichsbahn Inspector, Silesian Reichspost director, tax collector, Vice Consuls at some God forsaken place in Anatolia I can't even find on a map etc.). The medal bars' story then is plausable-civillian in WW1 in a technical capacity, then joins NSDAP in 1930 as an "officer", in uniform or "combat zone" in WW2 for the KVKx and helps build the Westwall. Makes me think NSKK type.

They are around-I got this one for US $30.

EK1 as a Corp.-not bad at all-one of 5%< I reckon.

The last could be a "light" Centennial-aren't color spectrum shifts terrible? Hey Deruelle: Look here-note his cross (I am not bidding on this one): http://cgi.ebay.com/German-WWI-Lieutenant-...1QQcmdZViewItem

The 'senior' AEZ Krz.:

Great pics. I am in the background in one of them. Can you spot me?

Imperial/Prussian trumps state awards?

Rumors are the dies went to the UK. I would like to see his file from the Berlin AG's offcie though. There are thoise here who know much more about the Kleitmans. Alas, I am not one of them.

Or (more likely to my mind)-after military service our man here went to work as a civil servant: postman, tax collector/ clerk etc. and he got the AE for long service as a civvy. Guesstimate: Born @ 1845-50, served between @1865-73, got a job and worked for Germany until 1910-15 (state retirement pension kicked in at age 65 under Bismarck's pension scheme). Landwehr medals were awarded differently than LS medals as per Ricks' article and took longer to acquire, so maybe the medal is original to the bar (I suspect it is). Maybe he got recalled as a geezer in 1914 and guarded a POW camp in the Landsturm for a few years. There were 65 year old Landsturm men in uniform in 1915, especially in Poland and in the homeland (Ever see "Les Grand Illusion"?) Nice bar.

Probably Nelson's expedition to Scandinavia in 1801-where he obliterated the Danish fleet. The League of Armed Neutrality comprised of Sweden, Denmark and Russia and was considered hostile to the UK at that time.

Very small world indeed. Thanks. Did you ever go to the medal shop over near Castle Hill-just over the bridge on the left side of the street? How about the army surplus up past the Catholic church on the way to the train station? they used to have WW2 badges for 50p. Thise were the days.