PKeating

Never seen that before. BSW, no less. Thank you for showing this. I know these are just photos but it looks good. Have you also posted this in the Imperial German section? PK

Image © site de web 'france-phaleristique' To clarify further, there are in fact three known types of KOUFRA clasp, including the 'oriental' style produced by the Monnaie de Paris after 1945, and two plain oblong types, of which the one shown above is an example. There is another type with thicker lettering and a stippled field or background. This latter type is believed to post-date January 1944, indicating that the type I have shown is therefore an extremely rare early or '1st pattern' type, not that any of them are exactly common. PK

Thank you, gentlemen! I knew you two would like it! Vétéran will be pleased to learn that I managed to obtain a nice copy of the Hass book...for a considerable price! But it really is the sine qua non for anyone intending to collect the Médaille Coloniale seriously. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this medal and its clasp. Chris rightly indicates that the document is the next step, but with around 400 men involved in total, many of them African tirailleurs sénégalais and méharistes, that is going to be a very hard piece of paper to find! I suppose it might be worth a couple of vacations in Senegal and Chad because the chances of finding a document in France must be very, very slim, given that Koufra enjoys holy status in the Free French 'panthéon' and most families of Frenchmen and, I think, légionnaires who were there would be very reluctant to part with a piece of family patrimony of that nature. There again, as you both know, a lot of my modest French documents collection came from garbage containers and plastic bags thrown out by ignorant grandchildren who kept the medals to sell them on, thinking they were the really valuable things, whilst throwing out documents and photographs. The Italian force suffered three KIA and four WIA during the two-weeks siege, while French losses amounted to four KIA, one of which was European, and twenty-one WIA. When the Italians surrendered to Leclerc at 14:00 hrs on 1.3.1941, they consisted of eleven officers, eighteen NCOs and men and 273 Libyans. By the time the French force reached Koufra on 7.2.1941, after a journey of some 1,700 km, it comprised around a hundred Europeans and 250 colonial troops, mainly from Cameroon and Chad. There were also men from the British Long Range Desert Group, moving south from Cairo, who had escaped from the Italian Sahariana columns, similar to those of the LRDG, and joined up with Leclerc's column coming up from Chad. An additional footnote to the Koufra battle was the presence of a certain Captain Massu, who would later gain notoriety as one of the leaders of the attempted military putsch against President de Gaulle in 1961. There is another type of Koufra clasp, struck in the oriental style, which may have been produced in Algiers. It is believed that these plain, oblong clasps were produced in London although I have seen no evidence to support this theory and the clasp seems a little thin to be a J R Gaunt item. Gaunt's products, including British, American and French insignia, have always been quite substantial. PK

Minty variation by J R Gaunt of London with the clasp for Koufra. Rather scarce...

Jim! What can one say? That's superlative. Thanks for sharing those gems. PK

Read the first line of my last post. PK

I've said all I intend to say, for the moment, on this matter. This thread speaks for itself. Once a discussion descends to personal abuse, it is no longer a discussion because the side hurling the abuse have nothing more to say. However, given that the hits on this thread are climbing towards the 5,000 mark, this question of naming names merits a comment, which I address to the GMIC membership as a whole. As someone whose full - and real - name has been spelled out in this thread and many others, I don't have a problem with it, despite having valuable collections of classic motorcycles, medals and photographs, and despite having had certain members of the management of a certain forum try hard to make trouble in 'real time' for not just me but my wife because they were angry about the exposés of crooks and crooked dealings I published on the internet when I still had spare time to run that kind of website. Some people have bona fide reasons for using pseudonyms. I use pseudonyms for a lot of my work. I sometimes wonder if I ought to have used pseudonyms on all of these militaria websites. On the other hand, I have nothing to hide because I am neither a crook nor a liar and stand by just about everything I have ever posted, the occasions when I have retracted statements notwithstanding. I think most if not all of the people in this thread who have been named have published their full names and, in some cases, addresses on the web at various points in the past ten years. So that's a bit of a non-point and also a bit of a red herring. Finally, I'd like to empathise with our Chairman over the large number of messages he has doubtless received, calling for the banishment of Les Peters and myself from this website. I imagine all sorts of pressure and implicit threats have been brought to bear by certain people with long-standing grudges and various agendas. I confess that I too have an agenda: it involves pointing out dishonesty when it occurs. That has made me a few enemies. Les Peters is cut of similar cloth. And we've both been around a long time. Our enemies are balanced by our friends. This website has no hidden agenda. It is not an advertising hoarding for shady dealers nor a sales tool for crooked privateers of one kind or another. This thread evokes the bad old days on other forums, including Wehrmacht-Awards and German-Daggers, where I was once a moderator with the late, great Bill Stump, who would have waded into this thread and made short work of things. I don't know about you fellows but I do know that I do not wish to see the sort of WAF-style bullying tactics that alienated so many people imported to GMIC, which was founded partly as a reaction against the rot on that website. I should add that I speak as a former Lifetime Member of the WAF. I might also add that the way out of the growing hegemony of the WAF-GDC axis that Bianchi and Gottlieb were trying to form a few years ago was paved by the forum I shaped with the help of other 'Awkward Squad' members: MCF. GMIC is vastly classier than MCF, which was unashamedly tabloid and populist in tone and nature but also very effective. Some disgruntled WAF people tried to form an alternative forum - GAMF - but messed it up by trying to 'pre-ban' people they didn't like, with embarrassing consequences. Maybe it's time to cure some memory problems by setting up a cyber-museum of militaria forums since 1999. If nothing else, it might serve to encourage some people to mind their manners... Prosper Keating

It was a throwaway reference based on a couple of threads last year in which the names Seymour and Ludvigsen figured. However, I see now that they were closed and removed from public view by the management so I don't think we should start a rematch. I respect this website and its management in ways in which I was never able to respect the other major websites and even if some of the chaps participating in this thread seem to flout GMIC's codes and rules with ease, with ad hominem tactics, double accounts, common verbal abuse and so on, I try to respect the rules and to operate within them. In any case, you were very vocal in those threads so you surely don't need me to replay them to you. We wouldn't want to force the closure and 'administrative removal' of this thread, would we? On that note, thanks for telling me whom you bought the medal bar from. I do hope it turns out to be the real thing. In any case, you have some serious heavyweights batting for you. If you do decide to move it on some day, I'm sure a couple of the richer chaps who've contributed here will be fighting over it. A Brilliantentragers medal bar? Loadsamoney! I bet the dealer is reading this and regretting not researching it! Regards, PK

Which dealer sold this medal bar to Paul Chepurko? Why has Paul not discussed this medal bar on the WAF, where he is a moderator? PK

The Devil's Advocate might suggest that it was an effective way of passing a clever fake with a high-earning potential into circulation. But someone has to ask the difficult questions, even if it results in waves of complaints to the webmaster from those facing the questions and their friends. PK

Without wishing to seem gratuitously contrary, I think you're missing the point. Walter Model did not survive the war so the question about including the 1939 Iron Cross Bar 2nd Class and the Winter War Medal is a bit of a red herring. The veterans who wore their WW2 awards to reunions and various events prior to the 1957 decree and the introduction of denazified awards, mainly for Bundeswehr members, either removed the offending swastikas themselves or, in the case of awards like the Iron Cross, simply turned them back-to-front. Some of them, thumbing their noses at authority, did not bother. I do not know how Model would have addressed the issue between 1945 and 1957 but given his personality, he would probably have just worn the Nazi awards, swastikas and all, with reasonable confidence that nobody would mess with a Generalfeldmarschall und Brillantentrager. In your opinion, the bar predates WW2. Opinions are subjective and while I do not wish to seem rude, many people with vast knowledge have been gulled by clever fakes and, note the word, reproductions. A tribute bar for display purposes would be a reproduction rather than a fake. That is your opinion and, as such, rather subjective. He was concerned enough to wear one or both awards in his buttonhole and on his ribbon bar. It is possible that he might have not had a medal bar updated with new awards after 1939 but is it probable? According to your interpretation of the biographies, it is probable. I would have to disagree with you. Model was quite a vain and arrogant man and certainly very image-conscious. Perhaps his appearance on occasion was carefully calculated to appeal to the common man and common soldier? Like his Führer's painstakingly crafted dress sense and anti-style. Model was ridiculed by some of his peers for this. Therefore, we should agree to disagree. Sure, but what is to prevent anyone with the requisite skills or with access to a craftsman with such skills from, for instance, using all these lists issuing from you and Rick to make up medal bars that can be attributed to interesting recipients? Moreover, you and Rick are not the only people in the world who have or have had access to this information and people have been faking medals and groups since medals were invented. Furthermore, there seems to be a developing market in medal bars, with some of the momentum doubtless provided by your collective fine work with all that OMSA data and other material you have been sourcing here and there. I hope it turns out to Model's medal bar. If you don't feel up to writing to his son, I'll happily do so for you. PK

Model in 1926 Rick Lundstrom: On what, precisely, do you base your identification of this medal bar as a Godet product? I cannot get past the off-centre eagle, the appearance of the red backing, the uneven loop stitching, that dangling thread and the complete absence of any indication that the backing ever bore a Godet label. Paul Chepurko: You may be right. This might be GFM Model’s medal bar, updated after the award of the long service cross. However, it is quite presumptuous to suggest that Model would not have added his Winter War Medal to his medal bar. Even humble private soldiers had their EKs and Winter War Medals court-mounted just in case they might need them. Someone like Model would not have been caught out like that. Moreover, he had aides-de-camp and servants to take care of that sort of thing. There are photographs of Model wearing ribbon bars during WW2. The only photo showing a medal bar dates from the Reichsheer period. Model’s son, General Hansgeorg Model, who recovered his father’s remains in the 1950s, co-produced a book about his father in 1991, containing a selection of photographs from, presumably, the family archives. There is as yet no known photograph of Model in parade order (Waffenrock) from the 1935-1940 period. Could this be an unmodified medal bar from his estate? Could he have had more than one? It is entirely possible but is it probable? A couple of those awards might have been harder than others to find during WW2 so it is probable that any upgrade to reflect the Russian campaign medal would have seen a bar like this disassembled and remounted. Model’s son published a photo of his father's HOH3X certificate in the 1991 book. Given the son’s obvious pride in his father and other facts, such as his loan of some of his father’s effects for museum display, including a baton, I find it a bit hard to believe that he would have disposed of his father’s medal bar comprising such prestigious awards. It is possible, of course, but is it probable? There again, the medal bar might have been stolen by some Allied soldier from the family home. Could it have been stolen from Model’s baggage after the GFM u. BT’s suicide? Maybe, but if the GFM u. BT were carrying it around, then one would expect to see it conforming to regulations, with a Winter War Medal in place. And if one were being pedantic, what about the Ehrenblattspange he received? An alternative scenario, if this medal bar truly belonged to Model, is that it was lent for display and disappeared, in which case the Model family would doubtless like to hear about it. Paul Chepurko: The ranklists are show that Model received this combination of awards during the 2nd Reich period but you are not the only person to have had access to these documents over the years. I can think of three high end collectors, including a friend of mine over there in the old New England region, who have commissioned medal bars for mannequins displaying Waffenrock belonging previously to military notables. One of the most skilled producers of medal bars is an Englishman now living in California. These medal bars were not necessarily made to deceive people, as we can see, but made up from ‘orphaned’ Imperial awards for museum or collection display purposes. In the past, they were also put together as a way of moving on Imperial stuff in which few people were interested. In those days, if it didn’t have a swastika on it, it was unsaleable junk. As prices have risen, the dealers and dabblers have had to find ways of selling the previously unsaleable or irrelevant, hence the market in Iron Crosses and other stuff according to makers and this new market in newly attributable Imperial medal bars. As for your conviction that this medal bar predates WW2, there seems little point in discussing it. I do not know the extent of your hands-on experience but no serious collector should ever rule out the possibility that he might have been gulled by a clever bit of fakery. It has happened to all of us. There are even those of us, like one fellow here, who find themselves inversely caught out in identifying originals as fakes. I don't know if you remember the scandal over the so-called Paul Conrath RK documents a few years back or not but it serves as a signal warning that even the most experienced and intelligent collectors can be had. "It looks OK and the period documentation says it existed so it must be OK!" is really not a very strong argument. Have you discussed this medal bar over on the WAF, where you are a moderator, or just here on GMIC? PK

Here's another good one, taken sometime between July 1941 and February 1942, when he received the EL. He wears the 1914 EK2 ribbon in his buttonhole with the 1939 Bar. Oddly enough, we share a birthday, albeit it seventy years apart.

I don't really think there is any scope for an adult discussion with people who resort to playground abuse, who think the Iron Crosses posted here (to make a point, which was clearly too subtle) are fakes and who think I need a lesson on German military regulations pertaining to the wear of the Iron Cross and its various accessories. Nor does the argument that something must be OK because it looks OK cut any ice with me. Very talented people have been assembling Imperial and Third Reich-era German medal bars for a long time. I knew one man in London, now living in California, whose work was of a very high order. Do any of you remember, for instance, the scandal over the Paul Conrath RK document back in 2004? George Petersen was taken in by a couple of very high end forgeries and a smooth story. I was being flippant about the Spange but Model was photographed wearing in both in his buttonhole and on his ribbon bar. PK

Model was awarded the 1939 Bars to his 1914 Iron Crosses on 22.9.1939. So this rare first pattern from my collection could be Model's Spange. It's original and looks like the one he received. PK

Well, Model is a special case. Apart from anything else, he was a Brillantentrager. So your medal bar, if it turns out to have belonged to Model at some point, would be a very significant discovery. PK

Actually, I collect 'The Iron Cross' from 1813 to 1957, albeit slowly. I used to collect 1870-71 and colonial medals and their bars before I decided that I preferred the French Colonial Medal. As for Imperial medal bars, I've had a few in the past thirty-odd years, some of which were attributable. It would be nice if the Model medal bar turned out to have belonged to Model but I think the things that put off other collectors might prevent me from adding it to my collection were I interested in medal bars: the condition of the ribbons compared to the medals, the asymmetrical backing, the stray thread and so on. And the anomalies, like the absence of the 1939 Spange and the Winter War Medal. But if you do succeed in getting General Model - the son - to respond to your enquiries, he might be able to confirm that he disposed of some of his father's effects, like this late-1930s medal bar, rather than having them displayed in museums, like his father's baton and so on. There again, he might tell you that these medals were stolen from his father's estate at some point and ask you to return them, which would be a bore. PK

Mark well what Veteran tells us. he has probably forgotten more than we ever knew about this subject. And he happens to be a WW2 veteran. Ex-FFI et LE: ex-French Resistance and Foreign Legion. This man, who has received me in his house, has recommended various books - which I have been acquiring - but I wish he would write a reference book...or three...or four... Not so many WW2 vets on this website... PK

Dangling thread...

It would be interesting to see what would happen if GFM und Brillantentrager Model's medal bar was put up for sale at Hermann Historica or some such place. Would all those collectors who passed on it previously cause a stampede? Has anyone thought of getting in touch with Model fils? A letter from him confirming that this medal bar must have belonged to his father would be the cherry on the cake. PK

The pin is similar to that on the atrocious NSFK badge you posted elsewhere, Kev. I think these are copies of copies. PK

I think it was no more than a rumour that someone was making and distributing copies of Paul C's CDs. There again, if someone assumes the right to 'digitize' - like Sergey Brin and his accomplices - anything he feels might be of use to the collecting community then why shouldn't anyone be able to make copies of those CDs and, perhaps, distribute them FOC to anyone who sends a stamped addressed envelope? Surely, what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander? Copy...and be copied... After all, thanks to the US court system and Google's strongarm tactics, copyright law is just about to be completely undermined so all of these discussions will be redundant. PK

Hmmmm. The story as I heard it was that these badges were discovered sometime in the 1970s during some maintenance work in basement of the Naval HQ. Bacqueville probably produced a range of KM war badges as part of the charade of alliance and co-operation between Paris and Berlin from 1940 to 1942. However, they probably fell foul of the tightening up by the PK/LDO in 1941 of the rules governing medals and badges and were dumped in the basement by some Kriegsmarine clerk. There is said to be a photo somewhere in the ECPA-D archives showing some KM sailors in La Baule, one of whom is allegedly wearing a Bacqueville badge, easily identified at a distance by the distinctive shape of the bottom part of the wreath when compared to German-made badges. However, neither I nor any of the other chaps interested in this have been able so far to find this photograph. That said, I believe these badges to be of wartime manufacture. They are also being faked now by you-know-who in Paris, which is amusing. Some of the originals have garish gold paint on the wreaths as a result of 'touching-up' by the dealers who acquired them in the 1970s. The best ones to collect are untouched examples, dans leur jus...and, sometimes, in their little boxes. But yes, the story sounds like a load of ballocks. I prefer the 1970s version. PK

I would concur, Tim. But it is still a perfectly genuine piece, just like the wonderful 1954 pattern cross shown earlier. Like other European nations, the Belgians view the award document as the important bit, the medal merely being an outward indication of possession of the document. From a collector's viewpoint, it is nice to have medals clearly dating from the period but, sadly, as in France, the documents are so often thrown out by families or pickers clearing a house or flat out because they fail to appreciate their importance, believing instead that the medals must be very valuable, which is why we see so many "orphan" Belgian and French medals in flea markets and antique shops with no documentation relating to the recipient. PK

Lovely group, Gunner. I like the miniatures too. Is the CdG British-made or did the Belgians' miniatures correspond in dimensions with their British counterparts?