landsknechte

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.

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.

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.