Carol I

Placa means breast star (from the French plaque). The real thing

In drawings they look rather good. In reality... take a look at the images posted on on the site of the Chancellery of Orders.

It's only a strange choice of words, Kevin. Civilians wear rosettes (which may have several shapes) on their jackets, while officers wear bars on their uniforms,

A small note Kevin, these are not replacements of long-lost medals or orders, but the new awards of Romania. High resolution images of the real things can be found on the site of the Chancellery of Orders. Too bad they look more like trinkets than awards.

This is a commemorative award, Ordinul "Victoria Revoluţiei Rom?ne din Decembrie 1989" (The Order of the Victory of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989), established in 1996 (this makes it the first award of the new republic).

It is not included among the official decorations, so it must be an unofficial issue.

Thanks Hunyadi, hence his collar must have looked like this.

I see... Everything seems to indicate a lower rank. Thanks again. If I dig some more details I will post them here.

Unusual ribbon ... It normally was yellow with red and blue stripes on the sides.

Thanks for the reply. What about the hat? Is it also of the enlisted variety? What would the colour of his collar have been if he was connected with the military postal service (as legend went in the family)?

Thanks Keith for your input. The contrast in the photo I posted before was altered. Below is a close-up of the stars from a photo of the original photo. For other details I'd have to take a look at the original with a magnifying glass, but that will have to wait for some while.

Great! It appears that they are two city assay office marks for Vienna. I cannot imagine why the jeweller applied not one but two such marks on the loop when there already was one on the small ring.

Thanks Hunyadi. On a site on the Austro-Hungarian Army I have found the information below. Corporal (two six pointed white stars on the collar or collar patch) Lieutenant (two embroidered six pointed silver or gold stars) It is hard to tell from the picture whether the stars are applied or embroidered. Were there any other differences between the insignia of corporals and lieutenants other than the material of the stars? The family references to him are somewhat vague three generations later: "member of the military postal service for many years".

I can imagine that, so it's no problem if you don't succeed. An alternative method would be a digital camera with a good macro function, but this could also be tricky since the marks are so small and diffcult to get in focus.

Upper Hungary has nothing to do with Transylvania, but with Slovakia (see Wikipedia).

Chris, Hungary occupied Northern Transylvania in 1940, not in 1938.

On the reverse is the coat-of-arms of Transylvania. It appears in the same form in Romania's coat-of-arms in the lower-left (heraldic) quarter.

It helps to determine the silver content of the badge (0.950). The Romanian mark for silver has an "I" in between the two dolphins, also indicating a high silver content (I don't remember the thresholds and the site that used to indicate them has unfortunately disappeared ). The only remaining thing now is the meaning of the two "A" marks on the suspension loop. It would be interesting to see them if possible.

Can someone give details about the rank (and maybe branch of service) for this officer? Thank you.

These have been identified as Austrian hallmarks. "AF" is the mark of an unidentified maker, "A" is the Vienna city assay office mark and the third one is an Austrian mark for 0.750 silver. See Unknown hallmarks for details.

Take a look at the image from an article by James W. Schaaf posted by Rick Research in Unknown hallmarks and maybe you will identify the unknown mark on the small ring and the double letter mark on the suspension loop. Maybe the latter is not AA, but FR to indicate "luxury tax paid".

To summarise the marks on this badge: Small ring: - KF - indicating Karl Fischmeister of Vienna (confirmation?) - swan - French import mark (according to Andreas' site) - A with a dot beneath - Vienna city assay office mark - unknown - could be an Austrian mark for silver - dolphins - Romanian mark for silver Suspension loop: - two As (I did not understand whether there is one mark with two As, or two marks each an A) - unknown yet This is an interesting collection of marks. It could indicate a badge manufactured in Austria, sent to Romania and subsequently awarded to a Frenchman and therefore exported to France.

Is there a sixth hallmark on the suspension ring?