landsknechte

I'm far from being an expert in medal bar construction, but the hooks look like they were hand snipped out of sheet brass.

Gorgeous bar, with the wonderful perk of being identified.

Very nice find!! Can you poke and prod carefully on the back side of #8 and determine if the caramel colored front turns into a red where it's buried underneath the backing?

They do have special UV blocking glass at frame shops that would help to protect the ribbons. If you're having something framed, it's worth the extra few bucks.

The one on the left is OK by me, too. I'll bet she's a great gal.

Odds are that she'd be cool with all the "icky army stuff" around the house that most of are so fond of, and that spouses are so stereotypically adverse to...

This is absolutely fine for that brief 1934-35 period before the Iron Cross was decreed "always first" as the universal award of WW1. There is now no way to tell whether a bronze or a silver FAM went on this--

always a problem with hook-back medal bars--

but either could have been worn alone with an EK2 by a former junior enlisted man.

Chances are the wearer removed his medals from this when the regulations changed in 1935 and remounted them again.

Was it a matter of the silver and bronze FAM being not being awarded sequentially, or the soldier choosing to wear the highest grade?

I think, the bar itself is okay. Its mounted in a Saxon Style with Saxon awards first, nothing unusual. On first place belongs the Bronze FAM in my opinion and on second an EK, like Tom already said. If he had the Silver FAM, wouldn?t he wear both then?

This one makes me nervous. A recepient of both grades of the FAM would have been entitled to wear both, and the EK would have been in first place after 1934 when the Hindenburg Cross came on the scene. Saxons wearing their awards first is nothing unusual for wartime bars, the Bavarians did it too. However for a bar of this vintage??

For what it's worth, the Flandernkreuz isn't even "legal" for wear on a medal bar with the Hindenburg Cross.

Could it have been made somewhere in the far east for US troops stationed there?

He's got ribbons for the American Theater and the Europe / Africa / Middle East Theater, but no indication of service in the Pacific.

Can anyone explain this strange little antique store find??

Does anyone know if there is a listing of the German units involved in the liberation of Helsinki in 1918?

--Chris

Nice work!

How about Oberleutnant Friedrich Freiherr von Berchem (I believe he mustered out as a Hauptmann), or Hauptmann d.R. Georg K?stner? Both Bavarians.

Seen on ebay....

why is it fake?

Foreign Legion AND infantry clasps?

That's a good sign, I was getting in the ballpark.

Just to double check my understanding... Gross-Namaland + Oranje = 1906 ?

Very definitely an EK2. Little ribbon bars didn't come in until 1915.

Chances are this was a "short-timer" brought in for the

surge

in the Hottentot-Herero War and then went back home to his regiment in Germany rather than staying on in the colony's Schutztruppen.

As a "pure Prussian" this is not traceable.

But since that is the Crown-Order-specific device in the middle...

4th Classes with swords in the years when most were for SWA =

1904: 101

1905: 159

1906: 238

1907: 162

which kind of puts rarity in perspective-- even though those are almost half of them given out for colonial campaigns!

Makes sense. I knew that the ribbon bar was post-1915, but didn't know the likelihood of EK vs. MEZ vs. MEZ + EK on the buttonhole. Frankly, I'm rather curious as to whether any related medal bars might surface out of the same collection.

I'm still something of a newcomer to the history of DSWA... Would the ribbon in 1st place be more likely to be a 1914 EK, or a MEZ?

I am VERY very sorry to here that. Don was a great guy.

There's a very real chance that I may have met him at some point along the line, knowing that we've both frequented some of the same shows. In all honesty, I can't put a face to the name though.

Are 4 and 6 Russian?

That's a PEACH of a bar, and quite unusual in 25mm size, since I'd say it's wartiume. One for the "second Edition!"

Don has THE outstanding collection of Colonial German and German navy (all periods) in America. I've got photos he sent me in the '70s and '80s that put the 2002 Siebentritt collection to shame.

We used to be in fairly frequent contact, but I haven't talked with him for years. If anyone IS in contact with him, for the love of God steer him away from Thies!!!!

And if anyone IS in contact with him, please have him get back in touch with me-- he still has "my" Admiral B?ning's framed Austrian Anschluss ballot and his second Werner TWM. Thanks to Don, I was able to reunite the B?ning group (except for--wouldn't you KNOW It--his ribbon bar which has gone missing), which he had sold to somebody who sold it to somebody who split the group in half. I got both halves, and will always be grateful for him to steering me to the auction selling that second part.

Actually, Don passed away in 2006 from what I understand. I bought this bar from Ed Anderson, who mentioned that he had some 20 or so more colonial medal bars that were going to be coming his way in the near future. I'll PM you his email address, since I don't know if he'd want it published on a forum.

--Chris

I thought Don Frailey was a huge Kriegsmarine collector? Did not know he did Imprial stuff as well?

Apparently, he had a respectable collection of colonial, China, and DSWA stuff. Rumor has it that some of his medal bars are soon to hit the market.

(Apologies for the cruddy macro photography on this one.)