Carol I

Here is an image (not very successful unfortunately) showing the thickness of the badge. Does it look like one of the Spanish ones you mentioned?

Order of. St. Vladimir These seem to have poor manufacturing quality which could not fool many collectors.

Order of St. George

Order of St. Andrew

Are these badges on eBay from the same source? Order of St. Andrew (collar)

I don't, but nevertheless it would be useful to gather images of all known models of fakes.

The Order of Michael the Brave, 1st class... He was one of the four British recipients (well, five if you count King George V).

Reverse

Another badge that was on eBay some time ago. Obverse

Reverse

Just spotted this fake badge in the window of a medal dealer. Asking price: 1000 EUR. Obverse

No, they did not. They revived however several orders of the complex system of awards existing during Carol II's reign (the Order for Loyal Service, the Order for Merit, several other orders of merit etc.). See the file describing the new system of awards from the Chancellery of Orders.

Yes, it was, in 1998 (see Order of the Star of Romania). In fact several of the old orders were revived between 1998 and 2003, but unfortunately the manufacturing quality is gone...

The State Mint in Romania also manufactures the collars and this means that they have the same quality as the other grades. (The thumbnail above has a link to a high resolution image from the Chancellery of Orders.)

A Romanian order on the other hand would indicate an officer rank during WWII.

Had he been a member of the medical staff taking good care of Romanian POW or the civilian population in the occupied territory, he would probably have qualified for the Sanitary Merit Medal after WWI. For sanitary merits yes. But the ribbon is wrong in this case. If he got the Knight's cross of the Order of the Crown of Romania, then it most likely is a WWII award according to the ribbon.

Does anyone have close-up images of these replicas?

As far as I know, Switzerland does not have any medals.

The badge of the Sanitary Merit Medal has remained unchanged during its whole existence, so it is not easy to say whether it was awarded in WWI or WWII. The ribbon on the bar on the other hand is that of a WWII wartime award (with swords) of the Order of the Crown of Romania (the reverse of this order was posted by Dave above).

Thanks Rick for your opinion. I do not think however that the owner had purposedly bent the tips of the swords transforming a war badge into something that could have easily been mistaken for a peacetime badge. Besides, for years after WWII there was no occasion for the bearer to pose with such an award, not to mention the danger associated with such an act. I would rather suspect that the badge was damaged by someone who did not know or understand its value, such as a kid playing with "grandpa's shiny trinkets found in the upper drawer". This being said, I would not do anything to the badge unless I was certain that it would not do any further harm.

I have no idea Alex. It's not as if someone has dropped the badge. Had this happened I suspect that only one or two of the tips would have been bent, not all of them. Furthermore, except for a couple of hairline cracks and minute flakings, there is no damage to the enamel. All these make me think that the damage was done intentionally. However, I can find no reason for this except that it was done by someone who played with the medal.

Thanks Brian for the advice, but as I said I am not going to do anything for a while.

That was precisely my point Dave. But I think the difference between the terms should be explained by someone with experience from a museum environment (Ed?) as well as how much it is allowed to work on a damaged piece.

According to the 1906 regulations and presumably before that date as well "the Knight grade of the of the Order of the Star of Romania is above the Knight grade of the of the Order of the Crown of Romania and equal to the Officer grade of the latter order". Admission into the orders was to the lowest rank and promotion to higher ranks took place after specified time delays. Only in extraordinary circumstances these rules were to be overlooked. The foreigners were generally exempted from the regulations governing the awards to Romanian citizens.

Thanks Kim for the update. If there are no other connections than the comissioned painting, I would guess that the accomplishments of Commander af Sill?n both in the navy and in the artistic world must have determined King Carol to appoint him Officer of the Order of the Star of Romania. Nevertheless it is quite interesting what unexpected links can be found between countries.