Tim Tezer

Glad to hear it, and looking forward to that beer one day. Tim

And here is the memorial plaque. Soon to be reunited with the group, thanks to GMIC! This was separated from the lot when it was sold at auction years ago, which is why I posted this thread. When the mistake was discovered, it had changed hands and we could not locate the owner. Still not too late - it's going home.

Sent you a private message.

Yes! Ugghhh, it's horrible.

Yes, TM1 (Turkish Mejidie Order, 1st Class) is a sash, badge, and I'm pretty certain that's what he is wearing. Tim

Maybe he wouldn't have so much trouble moving inventory if he stopped buying things at retail from other dealers and doubling the price. :whistle:

This is all pretty amazing. First of all, I didn't even know there WAS a roll of recipients of the Griffin Order. Still, I can't explain the absence of the Spanish order from this bar, so it may be too soon to conclude that this is our man. On the other hand, there may not be any better candidates. The original story on the group was that it was "taken from the uniform of a Lieutenant General when he was captured in 1945," but that story is barely plausible. There is a General's shoulder board that came with the group (just one) but as I said there is also an 1870 EK2 medal bar, so obviously the story is just a story. It's possible the shoulder board was taken from the uniform of such a person, but the rest of it may have come from other sources, which I why I didn't give the Italian Order of the Crown much thought when I first posted this. The only other thing in the group that may (or may not) have any bearing is a Johanniter Order, Ehrenritter. There is no particular reason to believe that the Johanniter belonged to this officer, or for that matter to the owner of the EK2 bar.

There was also an Italian Order of the Crown with the group, on a ribbon that had been removed from a medal bar. But then again, there was also an 1870 EK2 group. Possibly a family group, but who knows? I don't that helps clarify anything. I don't see why the Italian Crown Order would be part of this group. These are supposed to be vet bring-backs from the war, but there's no way to kniw if all of these items came from the same source. Thus, it is possible he Friedrichs Order didn't belong on this bar, but it seems likely. Tim

The Friedrichs Order came with this group, although detached. Long service cross ribbon would be much darker. I didn't realise there was a roll of Griffon Order recipients. That could be very helpful. Now I just have to figure out how to narrow it down. Tim

Here is a photo of the back. The cloth is stitched down pretty tight, but you can see some traces of other ribbon colors where some scrap ribbon was used - note the red peeking through next to the Crown Order. Yes, the tiny rings of the swords suspension are really bent, and I haven't tried to straighten them yet. I will need to wait until a day when I have a steady hand and the patience to do it very carefully.

Yes, I have to re-attach the Friedrichs Order - the ring is completely missing. And then I want to replace the Sword Order if that's what it was. It would be great to find the recipient, but I'm not very hopeful. The Fusilier Regt. Konigin Victoria von Schweden was a good lead, but nobody with the right combination of awards appears in the 1914 Rangliste. That would mean that this officer would have earned all of these orders after the publication of the 1914 Rangliste, including the KO4 without swords. Hmmm... I wish there was a roll of the Griffin Order, but to my knowledge, there's nothing out there. Tim

Just got this new medal bar, and I'm trying to figure out what's missing from the last position. It also came with a ribbon bar that did NOT include the EK2 ribbon or the mystery ribbon on the far right. I have two theories: 1) it was a Braunschweig KVK2 with non-combatant ribbon (which is a little odd, since the EK2 has the black ribbon), or 2) it was a Swedish Order of the Sword Knight's badge. I have no identification on the recipient, and probably will never be able to figure this one out. Any thoughts?

That's the real question. By my count, only three WW1 aviators could have had the Silver Star Medal with OLC and the DSC: Swaab, Clayton Bissell and Kenneth Littauer. John Hambleton earned the DSC with OLC, and two Silver Star gallantry citations, but while that would have made for a great medal group, Hambleton died in 1930 in a flying accident and never lived to apply for the Silver Star medal. Not sure about Bissell, as I couldn't find a date of death and never went to the trouble of pulling award record cards for all these guys. But at most there were three who could have had the DSC/SSM+OLC. Eddie Rickenbacker never got a Silver Star, oddly enough, even with the Medal of Honor and 7 DSCs. No question that a DSC/SS combination to a WW1 aviator is generally very hard to come by. Considering that the Medal of Honor is not even available to U.S. collectors, and no WW1 aviation MoH's would be available even if they were legal to deal in, a DSC/SS combo becomes one of the great prizes out there. Tim

Don't want to nit-pick, especially as I also believe this is one of the best WW1 U.S. aviation groups in existence, but my (incomplete) research shows a lot more than three Silver Stars to aviators for WW1. I have counted 196 gallantry citations to aviators, which would break down into 186 Silver Stars and 10 Oak Leaf Clusters if not for the fact that many of those who received the citation never actually applied for or received the medal. In fact, a number of them never lived to see the establishment of the Silver Star medal in the 1930's. At least three recipients were upgraded to a DSC (Henry Robinson Clay, George Fisher and Edward Harold Greist), and to the best of my knowledge only one recipient earned three citations: Lawrence K. Callahan, 148th Pursuit Squadron. Callahan never received the DSC. I had intended to pursue my research further and establish how many actually applied for the Silver Star medal, but I never got that far. Maybe some day. Tim

I would just call it a repair.

It appears to be a Third Class (or possibly a Second Class separated from the breast star). The ribbon ring is for a neck ribbon, now attached to that chain from who knows where. Something has also been done to the connection between the badge and the crescent suspension piece - there is not supposed to be a strip of metal wrapped around the bottom point of the crescent. Tim

Great information! Thanks for that, 922F.

Sorry for the late reply, but I just stumbled across this posting. The Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy was established in 1951. The design was changed completely a few years ago (2001, I think) to resemble the Kingdom-era Order of the Crown. The green case is correct, and judging by how "shiny" it is, I would say this is a later production piece, at least last quarter of the 20th century. Tim

Sorry to chime in so late, but I am still catching up on reading old posts after a long period of business travel. One possible maker of the "Walter Schott fec" badges that has not been mentioned is Hugo Schaper. Schaper made all of the Naval Aviation badges, and Hugo Schaper's brother, Fritz, was a colleague and close acquaintance of Walter Schott when the two of them were students at the Akademie der Künste, in Berlin. It thus seems highly likely that Schaper was the original maker of those first-run U-boat badges, although I have never encountered any hard evidence of it. Tim

I would agree that these appear to be originals, but the photos are very small. I do not know of any fakes of the Halley stars - at least not yet. Tim

It sounds like it might be just be a variant, maybe one made by a non-Bavarian maker. Photos would help. Tim

Are the arms enameled, or just the center medallions?

I believe that Halley's predecessor was Pierre-Felix Paris, whose firm was founded in 1790 by his father, Jean-Alexandre Paris. It's a very interesting drawing, and what appears to be an enamel test piece! A fabulous find. Tim

There is an Osmanie Order being offered on Ebay at the moment with a very high Buy-it-Now price, and a "make offer" option, but the listing is copied entirely from my Turkishmedals.net web site, as is the photo. You will notice that the only photo in his listing is a thumbnail photo, which is also taken from my web site, and is in fact a version of the same image I have been using as my avatar on this site! Here is a link to the bogus listing: Turkish Neck Decoration-Osmanie Order (Nishani Osmani) I have contacted Ebay about this, but as usual they have done nothing. Tim

As for Swaab's MOH recommendation, if there was a hint of anti-Semitism in his rejection (to say nothing of blatant anti-Semitism) it would certainly not have been recorded in any official documents. That's how racism has worked in America since the Emancipation Proclamation - it often persists because it isn't mentioned overtly. Instead, people who are the wrong color or heritage are simply branded with a personal demerit of some kind: lazy, untrustworthy, dirty, stupid, etc. On the other hand, there were many recommendations for the Medal of Honor that were rejected simply because the level of personal bravery required was felt to be lacking in the recommendation. Rickenbacker wasn't upgraded to the MOH until the 1930's, and until that happened, any other living fighter pilot would almost certainly have been rejected. Once those decisions were made, they were not reversed, at least not until about the 1990's when we began retroactively awarding medals to people who may have been discriminated against in prior wars (mostly WW2 and Korea). Today the Medal of Honor is rarely awarded to living recipients, going mostly to those who have sacrificed their lives to protect their buddies, so by today's measure I don't think either Swaab or Rickenbacker would be considered for it. Tim