Ulsterman

Pretty cool Feldwebel picture MG.

Glenn? Glenn?

Cool!

Apparently the Tyrolian volunteer Oberjaeger Gaspar Wollnoefer served until 1918. This is an iPad photo of an Austrian war correspondents' official photo taken in 1917.. Gaspar was a 10 year old war volunteer in the 1848/9 Italian war and thereby he earned his FIRST silver bravery medal.In 1866 he earned a GOLDEN bravery medal for capturing an Italian cannon. This picture was taken in his third Italian war. Presumaly he earned both the Karl Cross and the Tyrol medal (probably posthumously given his age).

I suspect he was the oldest serving enlisted man in World War One and probably the oldest soldier who served in 1917-18.

Note that some of his officers in 1848/9 had fought against Napoleon.

Xmas present!

Good stuff.

Well, I am missing completely the reference to the deleted posts, the Olympics and the Moderator writing a book.

Having had a look at the RUSSIAN St Andrews' thread....you may well have a point. That 481k version does not look "old" or similar to the other specimens.

I had assumed the UK version.

Pretty cool. I did not know they gave the Armed Forces Expeditionary medal for Cuba.

An interesting discussion and here on this forum, a bit testy for once. Still, being Gentlemen and Ladies we shall keep it civil.

I am not disputing looking at objects d'art with a skeptical eye. Fakes at the upper end of the art market are superb. Everyone knows the story of the Dutch "collaborator" and Goerings' Rembrandt.

But to view an object like this as a fake in these circumstances is beyond the Pale IMHO.

Christies and Sotheby's earn their bread and butter by selling arts and antiques and an object like this, ( and have done so since the Stuarts were on the throne) certain to get an enormous of international media attention, must have been scrutinized and verified by many historians and experts. I would start by viewing this document as genuine and then work backwards. To dismiss it out of hand may be an ego boost, but is foolish IMHO. It reminds me of those people who claim that 9/11 was a US government/ Bush plot because the smoke billowed the 'wrong' way when the towers collapsed etc.. It is always nice to believe that one is the wise keeper of arcane knowledge and to have discovered dark and hidden truths, but in reality it says more about the skeptic's personally than the actual historical validity of an object. People believe or disbelieve things often for their own internal motivations.

Many, many Militeria collectors do this and think themselves experts because they are masters of second hand information...." I read it on the...." Or "well it's in Angolias' book so it's ok" etc.. There was an excellent thread on this over at the WAF @. 13 years ago in a column I used to post called "Fakes and Frauds", which was news culled from the Antiques press and law Society Journals about Militeria Fakers being caught. This led to a sharp exchange about some dealers and I well remember Rick Lundstroms' Reaganesque aphorism, " trust, but verify". Prosper Keating also wrote a very memorable post about how all dealers become jaded, somewhat bent because they have bills to pay and grow to loathe their clients, which I have often pondered at certain dealers' tables.

Bottom line the odds of this being the bone fide map are overwhelmingly good and there is very little I can see that says it isn't, beyond unwarranted ( note that word) suspicion.

Having said that, there is much to say on this topic....MUCH! Even the experts in our field are suspect and over the past fortnight I have come across certain things that have rekindled my interest in faking in Military antiques.

This is a forum that does a very good job at discussing the probity and history of these objects d'art in a civil fashion.

I apologize if my slightly sharp comment caused offense. However, a ' suspect' St Andrews' Order.....well, Id like to hear more about that. Even the experts get fooled sometimes...the question is how often.

If you honestly believe that this auction house with the potential legal/ financial liability attached to the sale of a document that is not THE document, well......... Good luck with that. I expect life is all actually merely the Buddhas' dream too then.

Its the real thing. Forbes didn't have much crap.

A sad thread, as David and Rick are now gone. I was right. Medal 3 is the Chakrabati Mala medal, given for 25 years good work in the Thai civil service.

Very cool. Is that a Russian regimental badge?

May I still get copies of 38, 39 and 44/45?

Gotta love U. mich.. Note 7 out of 137 EK1s went to Gefreiters in IR 476.

Sigh......I hope the Smithsonian gets it.

Very cool. Insanely rare.

Real heroes of labour? :0

I love your collection. The Bulgarian anti-Nazi group is outstanding!

The badges I am jealous of too.

Nice! I love these groups. These men were the real spine of the German army.

Great group! sad, he almost lived through the war....another week.

Great bit of history though.

As I recall this is an officially sanctioned veterans' award by the Bavarian Republic. I think it shows up in Vernon's guide. I note the picture is for the "flag medal", e.g. Hung from the flagpole of the town associations' standard.

was this worn by individuals? I have never seen one before.

True, but interest in imperial German/ Weimar has grown much stronger over the past 20 years...thanks to Rick Lundstroem

. Stogie and I used to be the only ones dueling over WW1 medal portraits on eBay and I recall losing a very nice Bavarian golden bravery medal photo to him for the "shocking" sum of.....................$11!

Zepplins have always been insane though.

Cool!

Yup, there are several variations of the Korean medal, the silver ones from Sweden being the best regarded.

A certain medal dealer in the UK claims these are not Korean War reissues. I claim they are. Those in the middle describe them as " "Commemorative".

Every medal that had Emperor Selassies' visage on it was mysteriously remade and reissued under the Derg. Many new medals were created and the old Orders abrogated ...but allowed to be worn until the Pseudo Marxists began to use this as an excuse to weed out the opposition (real or potential) on the Ruling Councils. Things got VERY ugly after Mengistu came to power. Very,very ugly....as in death squad,torture, kill your children in front of you ugly around 1984-88, Especially for older veterans of the imperial Guard and Korean War vets. North Korea had a few advisors in place in Ethiopia, there were thousands of GDR and Soviet specialists and tens of thousands of Cubans.

Was the Sacred Treasure awarded to Senior Officers? I thought it was an NCOs/ company officers' award.

$650 minimum.

The picture is gone.

Note that the Editor of the OMSA database has re edited my original uploads for political reasons and possibly to coordinate with the mistaken identification used by a British- French medal dealer. The modern UN Service medal is definetly Owains' dove medal as shown and the Korean vets society have confirmed the three lozanges are a Derg reissue of the Korean War campaign medal. Apparently old silver ones were required to be handed in as Marxist silver confiscation, but this only happened around Addis.