landsknechte

I'm in the process of trying to organize my collection a bit, and in so doing I'm revisiting some of my old bars.  I posted this rather salty bar 15-ish years ago, suspecting that it might be identifiable given the rarity of the GSF3aX.  Nothing came of it at the time, but I took another look at it today and got a hit!  Only two people in the 1918 Naval Ranklist have the right grade of the White Falcon plus the Hamburg Hanseatic Cross.  One was a doctor with a few additional decorations, and the other an artillery officer: Kapitänleutnant Martin Ratz. 

I've just barely started to look into his his history, but it looks like he was posted on a on everything from a Victorian era steamship (still rigged for sails), coastal artillery, a couple of dreadnoughts, to ultimately finish up the war on a captured Russian battleship.  He spent the interwar period doing exactly what you might expect - working for a botanical supply company in Erfurt..  He went on to serve in WWII in some capacity, with the rank of Korvettenkapitän.  He died during, or shortly after the war, and was buried in a military cemetery in Belgium.  

1 minute ago, Stogieman said:

I saw this one too, I think it’s just a Frankenstein bar

Any idea what #6 might be?  

I stumbled across this ribbon bar being offered for sale, and I'm utterly perplexed as to what I'm even looking at.  The only scenario I can come up with that makes any sense is that the ribbon that looks like a WWII Ostfront Medal, is instead something else, and maybe we're looking at the bottom row of a double stacked ribbon bar.  

Anyone see something that I'm missing?

9 hours ago, P.F. said:

Bavaria Red Cross Medal?

It looks the part, but I'm not sure if doubles of that Red Cross decoration would be possible.  Also, the swords seem problematic for that sort of award.

I suspect it's something like this:

16 minutes ago, P.F. said:

Regarding the Bulgarian ribbon- in hand, can you see the little silver flecks in the ribbon?

 

Ignore the color shift in this pic, the original pic is a better representation in that regard.  The stripes have that same sort of texture,

9 hours ago, P.F. said:

Could No. 5 be the Prussian Lifesaving Medal? 

It certainly seems like a good match physically, and it makes more sense than anything else so far,

5 minutes ago, P.F. said:

Are the last 2 ribbons white with blue stripes, or what is the configuration here? They look identical from the photo, just one has swords. 

They look like the blue and silver/gray ribbons that accompany some of the Bulgarian bravery decorations, but the blue is faded to (or has been replaced with) a dingy white.  The peculiar stripes are the same style.

10 hours ago, Stogieman said:

Good Morning! I don’t think that’s a FAM ribbon, makes no sense to me that a Saxon enlisted award would be on this bar?

I've been struggling to find anything that matched, even if it didn't make a ton of sense.  With that one, I was trying to figure out if it made sense with #4 being the medal version of the Prussian Crown Order, #5 being the FAM, and #6 being the Württemberg Military Merit Medal.   With that scenario, I'm also left wondering how probable that there's no long service decoration.

(I'm still trying to wrap by brain around the precedence either way.)

11 hours ago, spolei said:

Hello, there are many possible professions here. A university teacher, a clergyman, a mayor of a large city. A high administrative official, perhaps also a higher court official.
We won't find out from the ribbons.

Is there anything at all to be gleaned from the level of the St. Michael they were awarded?  

I've had this very Bavarian lapel bow for a while now, and wanted to give it a second look.

As best I can tell:

1. Bavarian Order of St. Michael 3 or 4
2. Bavaria King Ludwig Cross
3. Bavaria Golden Wedding Anniversary Medal
4. Bavaria Luitpold Cross for 40 years state service
5. Bavaria Prinz Luitpold medal (seems more likely) or Saxe-Weimar White Falcon
6. Saxe-Ernestine House Order
7. Prussian Crown Order or Württemberg Friedrichs Order

Obviously a dedicated career official of some sort, but what sort?  Are there any clues to be had?  In particular, what does the St. Michael tell us?

On 16/05/2024 at 10:35, P.F. said:

Lovely ribbon bar. No. 4 likely Prussian Crown Order/Medal.

 

No. 6 looks like the ribbon for the Württemberg Military Merit Medal, but I would not expect to see it mounted after the 1934 Honour Cross. 

I don't know why I didn't catch it right off the bat, but #5 might be a really washed out Saxon Friedrich-August Medal. 

13 hours ago, Daniel Krause said:

Marine-Stabsingenieur Oskar Holzmüller might be worth a look 🙂

 

Best, 

Daniel 

Aha!  He must have been awarded the MVO4X after January 1918.  If I'm not mistaken, he was assigned to the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold at that point.

By the way, do you know what might be referred to by the abbreviation RAMc?  It appears in a number of the ranklist entries for him up until 1914, then disappears by 1916.  I couldn't figure that one out, even with the section that explains the abbreviations and the hieroglyphics.  

4 minutes ago, Stogieman said:

Good Morning! I think you have a faded Crown Order and Long Service Cross. Did your research show those?

Neither show a long service decoration.  One's missing the Crown Order, the other has a couple of extra decorations not represented on the bar.

My first thought was Navy for this one. I can't imagine that the Bavarian MVO4X and the Lübeck Hanseatic Cross was a terribly common combination.  With that in mind, I went through the 1918 Navy Ranklist and found only two people that had both.  Neither of them were old enough to have been in uniform in time for the Boxer Rebellion, let alone the 1897 Centenary.   #5 is a faded Württemberg Friedrichs Order / Prussian Crown Order blue, which would preclude this bar belonging to an "invisible" senior NCO. 

Anyone have any thoughts?  Am I anywhere close to barking up the right tree?

Of course, the stuff that's least faded are the easiest to identify...  

#4 - Appears to be a solid light blue similar to a Württemberg Friedrichs Order or the Prussian Crown Order, but with a crown device?

#5 - Appears to be a white ribbon with thin yellow stripes at the edges, and a thicker yellow stripe down the middle.  With the fading and the folds, it's harder to get a fix on the apparent middle stripe.  The edge stripes are more certain.

#6 - I can't figure out what this might be, given where it is on the bar.

#7 & #8 - Closest match would be the Bulgarian bravery medals, but I can't find any surviving trace of the typical blue.  I can't think of anything else that has stripes like that.

Got the bar in hand, and had a chance to examine it closer: 

The backing material is a dark navy blue, not black.

I'm still not absolutely sure on #2.  Peeking back behind the backing behind it's just a teensy bit more blue behind the backing.  If it's a faded Hessian blue, it must have been a particularly unstable dye, given the comparative level of fading on everything else.  It's faint enough that it could conceivably be dye transfer from the backing. The stripes are much closer to the red on a normal Hessian decoration than they are the orange of a RAO.  Looking at the swords through a loupe, and they appear to be the same design as the other two.  I doubt they were a later addition.

The red on #7 is distinctly different than that on #2, just a hair more magenta.  It's pretty close to the shade of red in the stripes of some of the 1908 Jubilee medals.  Who would have been in a position to have it and the Prussian 1897?  Was Franz Joseph the honorary colonel of any Prussian units?

What decoration is that on the left?

This is the best I've got at the moment:

This ribbon bar is part of a group of ribbon bars I just picked up, and I've got some questions for the experts:

#2 - Is a RAO with swords legit on that ribbon?  

#6 - Bulgarian St. Alexander?

#7 - Any thoughts as to what this might represent?  Something foreign, I presume, but what would make the most sense?

I'm a sucker for named bar in general, but the personal connection was a huge selling point.  

I was fortunate enough to have stumbled across a named ribbon bar that used to be part of Rick Lundstrom's collection.  As soon as I double checked the provenance, I scooped it up.

However, with my horrible German, I haven't really been able to dig up anything on the original owner beyond the write-up in the 2016 auction catalog.  I haven't been able to find any discussion of the owner or the bar here or on WAF back in the day.  Anyone have any further info on Dr. Kosswig perchance?

After a good twenty or so years of very casually searching, I finally tracked down a Tamara ribbon bar.  My first ribbon bar with a tailor's label as well.  Interesting that it's not a Bavarian tailor.

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Now the OP needs to confirm if the thin stripe on the edge is green or if it is blue.

At first glance, I thought it was a "forest" green.  It looks more blue in the photograph than it does in person.  Took a look it with my trusty photographer's loupe, and the weft is a similar blue to the Lippe-Schaumburg ribbon.  I'm guessing that the green is just the result of aging, and it's effected some of the fibers more than others.  (The black on the EK also has a distinctly navy blue tint to it that's more visible to the unaided eye.)

I just scooped up a nice non-combatant's bar this afternoon, and I don't recognize the last ribbon.  Anyone recognize it?

Picked this up earlier this year.  It had all the hallmarks of the military version that was contracted to both France and Portugal.  The factory letter came in this afternoon confirming that it was indeed shipped to the French Army.

Lt. Vollrath Freiherr von Maltzahn u. Wartenburg u. Penzlin

1. Eskadron, Husaren Regiment Nr. 9

In a thread here, Deruelle has a photograph of Maltzahn wearing the big brother to my ribbon bar.  (Note the quirky placement of the Saxe-Ernestine in both bars.)

As a bit of a historical footnote, Maltzahn went on to get his law degree after the war, and followed his father into the diplomatic service.  Among other roles, he served as the first post war ambassador from West Germany to France from 1955-1958.