Ilja Heimonen

Thanks Colin and Ashley I see it now too. "Stutgart" fake i guess. I will keep it as an lesson! Cheers, Ilja

Hello Ashley! I am not sure, but it seems like the circle is on 3 different corners. Upper left, upper right and bottom right. I mean it is a 3 piece craft, magnetic and so on but yeah I have some doubts the deeper in I go. Very sad because i actually bought this in Berlin during a vacation and the first one that I bought I looked into deeper and knew it was a repro so I refunded it. This one is the second one that i bought during my time in Berlin and during the last days of my vacation i was confident that it wasn't a fake. Also the whole thing about finding an almost identical frame on this cross i found online gives me doubts but if i am not wrong frames were stamped with a blanking die so i guess it could make sense... cheers

So an update to this. I have just been trying to find out the maker and I found this cross marked "26" (or at least that's what they say in the website to me it looks more like a the numbers 25 "Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Graveur-Gold-und Silverschmeide-Innungen") for sale and i have a feeling that it looks very much like my cross. In fact i think they look a little too much alike... I also have done some research and have heard that the maker 26 "B. H. Mayers Kunstprägesanstalt" here never marked his 2nd class iron crosses with "26". He marked them "L/18" or just generally left them unmarked. The frames on both mine and the online cross are identical to very small details. The patina doesn't seem to be too far apart and apart from a few stains here and there. I am not very experienced with this and i do not know how to handle what i have just discovered. Compared to other "25" and "26" crosses "25" maker's crosses are the most similiar to both of these crosses. What i am guessing right now is that either mine or the online one is a repro or both of them. I was just trying to find who made my cross and i fell into this rabbit hole 😄. Any thoughts shared are gonna be greatly appreciated, I will continue looking for answers. See pictures below (Online marked pictures are of the cross that i found online and the Ilja marked pictures are of my cross that i own) Cheers Ilja

I was browsing yesterday and the thing you said about those corners "crows feet" which i just called them sharp is very helpful. Many makers don't have anything like that and some do but nothing compared to theese corners. Haven't browsed all possible makers yet but I feel confident. Thanks again!

Hello Ashley! Thank you for your insight! I myself have not been very confident in my S Jablonski take and have been looking for other makers. I also don't have the reference book that you mentioned so i greatly appreciate you sharing this knowledge. I will check out what i can find using the corners. Cheers Ilja

Thanks Graf, a very helpful website!

Hey! Could someone help me identify this iron cross´s maker. I believe myself that it is made by S. Jablonski Gmb H (128), it would usually have an square stamp on the ring with the numbers 128. Any help is appreciated, reference info or anything. I have had this iron cross for a long time and i haven´t figured it out yet, of course we can never be sure Thanks in advance, Ilja

I have found these to interesting pieces with an metal detector in Helsinki, Finland and they belong to the 3rd Finnish infantry regiment, which was an regiment that was based in Finland around 1900-1917 (During Nikolai the II´s reign of Finland). The regiment consisted of finnish and russian men. It saw action in the baltic states and in Russia during WW1. The white circular thing is an seal and on the obverse it reads: "3rd Finnish infantry regiment" in russian ("3-й финляндский стрелковои полк") and on the reverse reads: "treasurer" in russian ("казначей"). The other piece is an token that was given out to soldiers during their break time. In russian it is called "уволнителний жетон", so basically it was given out to soldiers so they could roam freely through a town when they were on a break and the token showed that the soldier is approved to do that. On the obverse of the piece it reads in russian: "nestr.ko 3.F.I.R", so "3 Finnish infantry regiment". No clue what the "nestr.ko" /" нестр.ко" stands for and on the reverse it has nothing. If anyone else here, by some miracle has some 3rd Finnish infantry regiment items, please tell me! Love from Finland!

Cool!

Can confirm, this post is still used after 10 years, amazing amount of research just in 1 post!!!

If i am not mistaken they all are knights class. The upmost left one is from the second empire 1852-1870, the middle one is from the July monarchy (1830-1848) and the upmost right one is third republic 1870-1940. Truly very nice pieces, i myself would love to have anything related to first empire, second or third. Legion of honor is in my sights. Fabulous!! Ilja

Very nice!

My bad the other cross seems to be N2 in the middle, standing for Nikolai the second...

Here i have an beatiful pieace of an volunteer´s cross, somewhere around 1881-1894 during the reign of Alexander the third. It was given out to volunteers who signed up for the imperial army. I acquired this piece for 30 euro recently from an auction. In the cross it says the following words: "за веру, за царя, за отечество" in old russian. which can be translated to "For faith, For the Tsar, for fatherhood / motherhood/ motherland", don´t really know how to say очечество in english so something about motherhood / motherland. In pretty decent condition aside from missing 1 pin from behind. In early times soldiers used to wear it on their hat but later it was more popular to wear it on your uniform. This cross was established somewhere around the time when Napoleon invaded Imperial Russia in 1812. It was used until the fall of Imperial Russia and the rise of the Soviet Union in 1917. In this cross it is Alexander the third´s initial in the middle of the cross (A3) so somewhere around 1881-1894. The one i own is the one with the white background. The one with the wooden table background has the initial A2, so Alexander the second in the middle. There are also different versions of it for example i remember there is one where they don´t mention faith. It was made for muslim volunteer´s since they didn´t follow the orthodox belief, but i haven´t personally seen one myself. Would love to!

Very cool! Not an experienced man when it comes to imperial Germany/Prussia but this looks very fine!