Frunzich

The quality is normal for the web pages. I specially reduced the large original scan with the highest resolution to this one. If I have time to take the medal from an album plate and scan it again tonight, I will do this

Hello! As for the ribbon of my Medal for Merit. Yes, you are right in terms of its back side, according to the photos I have seen (also see links above) the ribbon's back side should be assembled in other way. Nevertheless, the ribbon back side is not visible in the Optima-type album plate for medals I am using for my collection. I guess that the ribbon on my medal is old, perhaps, it was repaired sometime and then assembled in differ way or, which is more possible, it was ordered later to replace the original worn ribbon...Anyway, its shape, size and color are absolutely correct. Yes, to finish with the color. I am not iterating the topic, but I put your mind to your peremptory phrase about crimson ribbon as one of the proofs that the ribbon can be a replica whereas there are a lot of red ribbons for such medals on the modern photos (crimson also) and many respectful faleristic sites mention that the color of ribbon for Medal for Merit and Order of St. Alexander is dark-red. It will be nice to find original Bulgarian documents on the topic, including description of types and emissions of the medal. http://www.medals.pl/bg/bg12.htm - excellent ribbon chart. But thank you for your Easter present also P.S. So I see, what we can say about my bronze-class medal - that it belongs to Boris III emission (1918-1943 period) and was minted, perhaps, in Germany. Any more detailed info (exact manufacturer, exact year of mintage etc.) is impossible to discover.

I don't want to prove smth here and never try to say smth (always - just say after study the material), I would like to collect as much correct info about this medal as possible, perhaps, with your friendly help also. And I have noticed two quite different effigies (shaven and unshaven faces) of the Knyaz Ferdinand among the medals of the 2nd emission. Hard to say that this is only because of different manufacturers... As for the one of the online sources (besides excellent medal-medaille.com and several others, investigate medals.org.uk for this), quite good for this case is Wiki. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders,_decorations,_and_medals_of_Bulgaria - here just two variants with Ferdinand (Knyaz and Tsar) are mentioned. http://www.medals.org.uk/bulgaria/bulgaria-links.htm - note the red (not crimson as you mentioned above) ribbons of the Medal for Merit in the pages by Antonio Barrio and Lukasz Gaszewski! P.S. Ilief, you should mention your Internet sources also, specially if you post images here (for copyright reason, at least).

But it is possible to distinguish (at least visually, not officially) two issues of the Medal for Merit with effigy of Ferdinand as knyaz indeed. Note the dark-red ribbon, by the way http://faleristu.ru/museum/evropa/bulgaria/bolgarskoe_carstvo1/znaki_otlichiya310/medal_za_zaslugi2/knyaz_ferdinand/bronzovaya_medal_za_zaslugi_bez_korony_vtoroj_vypusk_1900_g1/ http://faleristu.ru/museum/evropa/bulgaria/bolgarskoe_carstvo1/znaki_otlichiya310/medal_za_zaslugi2/knyaz_ferdinand/bronzovaya_medal_za_zaslugi_bez_korony_vtoroj_vypusk_1900_g/

Yes, there were several variations of the Medal for Merit of Ferdinand's period. But the majority of sources mention only two MAIN types - with effigy of Ferdinand as Knyaz/Prince (medium age, without beard) and with effigy of Ferdinand as Tsar/King (relatively old age, with beard). http://www.medal-medaille.com/royal-medal-merit-bronze-ferdinand-knyaz-princely-issue-1887-1908-showing-young-ferdinand-p-2152.html (Knyaz/Prince, 1887-1908) http://www.medal-medaille.com/royal-medal-merit-bronze-ferdinand-p-2172.html (Tsar/King, 1908-1918) Tsar Boris III (ruled in 1918-1943) was against mintage of coins with his effigy even! The first coins with his effigy (20, 50 and 100 leva) appeared in 1930 only. Nevertheless, the effigy on 50 and 100 leva coins was changed a little bit in 1934. I have all these silver coins in my collection, too.

As for the ribbon color - officially it should be dark-red, by the way. But there were many variations in colors from crimson to red. http://www.medal-medaille.com/sold/product_info.php?cPath=498_44&products_id=2148 http://www.medal-medaille.com/sold/product_info.php?cPath=498_44&products_id=1315 http://www.medal-medaille.com/sold/product_info.php?cPath=498_44&products_id=145

Hello, ilieff! Fortunatelly, the knowledgeable Bulgarian guy is here! Yes, I read that Ferdinand I (first Tsar of the Third Bulgarian Tsardom) who belonged to German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha dynasty, loved beautiful decorations and luxury while his son, Boris III, preferred very simple and modest lifestyle (also we should take into consideration the weak economy of Bulgaria after WW1 when the country paid great reparations according to the Treaty of Neuilly). AFAIK that rare Medal for Science and Art (1883) with the effigy of Ferdinand was used also during the Boris III period. The effigy of young Boris III remained the same in 1918-1943 for Order for Merit, Medal for Merit and Life Saving Medal (the last one is also quite rare) indeed, but this is probably because he was a Tsar during the whole aforementioned period whereas two different effigies of Ferdinand (young and old) on the Medals for Merit corresponded to his Knyaz/Prince (1887-1908) and Tsar/King (1908-1918) periods, royal titles on the medal face changed correspondingly also. As for the correct red ribbon - I don't know exactly is it original or not (if the condition of a ribbon is good, it is hard to determine this), but anyway seems to be that at least this is not a very new thing. Perhaps, it was repaired some years ago with a read thread. I washed it carefully several times as it was quite dirty in the beginning and the metal hook inside it was of really old style and with age spots. Initially, the medal was bought on another, replaced modern correct red ribbon, but I decided to change it. P.S. Some sources distinguish two types of the Medal for Merit (Boris III period) - with or without letter "A" we have discussed above. Regards, Frunzich

Hi, Graf! A very nice collection! This is not Bulgarian Red Cross medals as the main subject of discussion here, but, also very interesting, Bulgarian Red Cross badges of different types (for instance, I see here the issues of Ferdinand I and Boris III periods, 1st and 2nd classes). As for the relatively limited info about Bulgarian decorations - I don't think this is because of Communist government. Yes, decorations of the Royal period were abolished since 1947 when People's Republic of Bulgaria was proclaimed (15 October, 1946) but the info on them was published for historical purposes, for instance, in museum catalogues and some journals (of course, the quality and accessibility of info from 1960-1980-s was far away from today Internet and digital era). Also 26 years already passed since Republic of Bulgaria was established in 1990 and a lot of modern literature was published on the topic.

Based on Interwar and WWII period I would say this is General Staff but the colour should be black (on the photo it looks like brown...) bordered with red. AFAIK there were only two army branches in Hungarian Army with two colours - General Staff and Border Guard (green colour bordered with red).

Hi, Gerd Becker! Yes, perhaps, but I have a good long-year experience with other international military forums, there are a lot of very knowledgable guys everywhere, and a lot of very interesting reply posts and photos... Well, I'll continue to post for everybody's interest here

The military interest club seems to be completely dead. I am very dissappointed

Silver class medals of 1918 or 1939 issues differ on the Greek (Geneva) cross in the center of the medal face - the medals of 1918 issue have the cross with vertical hatching denoting the heraldic red colour whereas the medals of 1939 issue have enamelled red cross. Besides "contribution with merits to the Red Cross Society or to the cause of charity in general without distinction of sex, ethnic origin or nationality", the silver class medals were awarded for 15 years service in the Red Cross Society (gold class - for 20 years service).

Some short historical info on Bulgarian Red Cross Society. The Red Cross Society was established in Bulgaria in May 1878 after the liberation of the country from the control of Turkish Ottoman Empire during Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878. When two Bulgarian provinces - the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia - became unified on 20.09.1885, the National Organization was then founded, becoming a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. During WW1 (the Kingdom of Bulgaria participated on the side of the Central Powers) Bulgarian Red Cross helped the war wounded very active, providing them with medical trains and field hospitals. Significant contributions to BRC were made by Tsar Boris III during the period of 1918-1943.

Hello, guys! I would like to discuss Bulgarian Red Cross Medal, which was created by Royal Decree on 15.02.1918 in two classes (silver and bronze) to be awarded for acts of humanity, philanthropy and help to Bulgarian Red Cross Society during WW1. In 1929 a second issue was created, also in two classes (gold and silver). The medal is quite rare at the moment. Does anybody have some info about manufacturers of this medal?

So am I right that nobody knows here - is it possible to determine exactly the manufacturer of the Medal for Merit (Boris III period, 1918-1944) above? It could be Bulgarian, German or Austrian manufacturer...

Also early medals (from Prince Alexander [1883-1886, who was forced by army officers to abdicate 20.08.1886] and Prince Ferdinand [1887-1908] periods) often had laterally-pierced ball instead of loop for ribbon suspension.

Interesting, that early issue of the Medal for Merit (Prince/Knyaz Alexander of Battenberg, 1883-1886) was minted with the head of Alexander I facing right. Such medals were signed "SCHWENZER" [Karl Schwenzer (1843-1904) - famous German medallist from Stuttgart). All following issues (Ferdinand I and Boris III periods) were minted with the head facing left.

As for the ribbon - the Medal for Merit was awarded on dark-red ribbon of Order of St. Alexander during a peace time (the medal was often given not only to army officers but also to officials, doctors, teachers, journalists etc.) and on wartime light-blue ribbon of Order for Bravery with silver stripe along both edges during wars (Balkan wars 1912-1913, WW1 1915-1918, WW2 1941-1945).

Yes, as for the bronze-class medals of Boris III period (1918-1943) - there were no any signs on them unlike bronze-class medals of Ferdinand I period (Prince/Knyaz in 1887-1908 and, after declaration of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, King/Tsar in 1908-1918). The bronze and silver-class medals of Knyaz Ferdinand's period were signed "A. SCHARFF", for instance [Anton Scharff (1845-1903) was a very famous Austrian medallist].

Hi, 922F! Thanks for the reference list. I heard about books by Todor Petrov and Prof. Petko Pavlov (the last one also published "Hystory of the Bulgarian award system" in several volumes). The catalogues by Veselin Denkov was published in Bulgarian language under the titles "Bulgarian orders, badges and medals" and "Bulgarian orders and medals". Officialy there were, I guess, only 2 types of the medal (Boris III emission) - with or without letter "A" in the word "Bulgaria" (БЪЛГАРИТҌ or БЪЛГРИТҌ). Forum memebrs can post here the images from their collections and we will compare these medals. I have posted my photo above already. Is it possible to define the manufacturer for bronze-class medals (which don't have mintmarks unlike silver-class medals) exactly, I don't know. Perhaps, it is very hard... P.S. By the way, here is the wikipage about Boris III (1894-1943) - one of the most popular and key persons of the Balkan history before and during WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_III_of_Bulgaria

Hi, paul wood! Thanks for the answer. Yes, it is strange that there are no detailed research works on this one of the most common and well-known Bulgarian medal, but some info can be found in Internet even. I found today the following info: the medal was minted by several manufacturers - for instance, in Bulgaria (by S. Miloshev, Sabev, Odabashian), Germany & Austria (P. Telge, G. Scheid), Switzerland (Huguenin). The amount of gold awards was very few (66 awards till 1940), ~ 2.000-3.000 of silver medals were awarded and ~10.000-15.000 of bronze medals.

Nobody has any additional info concerning the medal? Very strange for a respectful forum community...

Here is the Medal for Merit. Bronze class, 1918-1944 issue. Diameter 29 mm. The face with the head of tsar Boris III facing left, circumscribed with his name and royal title. The reverse inscribed "For merit" in Bulgarian language above a small five-pointed star within a wreath of oak and laurel. The dark-red ribbon was used during a peace time.

Unfortunatelly, it is impossible to edit the previous post already... БОРИСЪ III in both cases, but БЪЛГАРИТѢ or БЪЛГРИТѢ