Hi All,
Thank you so much for your very prompt and reassuring opinions. I also sent the pics yesterday to another dealer I have used, Marco Köegl,. He says it is a good one piece Schickle. My understanding is that makes it a post WW1 production piece, but there are no Schickle pieces pictured in my EK1 book that covers the period - Maerz and Stimson. In the text it does say that Schickle made imperial medals. I am embarrassed to admit that I have a nonmagnetic EK2 1914 with the same core, but not thought to compare it !! pic below
Thanks again; the forum is such a great wealth of expertise. I now plan to get involved - albeit likely more with questions than answers at my stage. I have no-one I know of to share my interest with locally. I am in New Zealand, where the collecting of foreign medals is most unusual (by 'unusual' I mean 'uncommon', but I have to admit 'unusual', in a wider context than just the collecting of medals, is a likely descriptive of me).
Cheers
David