Mike Dwyer

Great, Stuart! I really love that one! :beer:

Very nice shako, Gordon! I lived in West Berlin with my brother, who was stationed there by the US Army, from August 1964 to August 1965. I went to the annual Berlin Police Show, held in the Olympic Stadium. After it got dark a certain point was reached in the ceremonies where the crowd would light candles, large fires were burning at each end of the stadium, and as the police band played appropriate march music hundreds of Schutzpolizei would march into the stadium carrying torches. It was very, very electrifying. You'd almost have thought you were there around 1939! :whistle:

Very, very nice, Paja, thank you for showing it. :beer:

Since all of the helmets that I can see without covers have Prussian Garde eagles on them, I'm going to say that they're all probably Prussian. Most of them appear to be from Garde infantry regiments, although there's not enough detail to tell which ones. I also see an artillery officer or two in there, along with some heavy cavalry. Interestingly enough, they all appear to be adjutants. :unsure:

Very nice. I particularly enjoy the view of him over his lifetime.

Brian, I could be wrong, but I believe they're more like the Freemasons, just a men's fraternal organization promoting brotherhood and fellowship. I don't really know much about them. I found their website, http://www.raob.org/ and it appears they are British in origin. I also saw on the page "Introduction to Buffaloism" where it states that there are "...no contractual or insurance elements attached to membership..." Oh, and Fred and Barney belonged to the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, Lodge No. 26. Perhaps they're in competition with the Antedeluvians! :blush:

I just looked at Amazon.com, out of curiosity, and they had all of the Biggins novels listed for sale.

Hi, Neville! Welcome to the forum. I'm not really much of a collector, I'm mostly just a history nut! My main interest is Imperial Germany, but I do read other forums from time to time. I have a very, very small collection of a few Impeial German medals, a hundred or so old postcards of German royalty, nobility, and military officers. You've come to a truly special place. I hope you enjoy yourself.

Referring to Noah's flood that destroyed everything except those that were on the Ark. My Latin is not good at all, but I believe it means BEFORE the flood, not after. They're trying to portray great antiquity. I consulted an on-line Latin dictionary and it says ante means before. I also connect it with the term for the old Southern plantation mansions, antebellum homes, which means "before the war."

I believe the officer directly in front of the Kaiser's standard bearer is Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria.

Chris, The 1914 Rangliste has a Rittmeister dR Freiherr von Lüttwitz listed in Grenadier-zu-Pferd-Regiment Freiherr von Derfflinger (Neumärkisches) Nr.3. It's hard to tell, but I think that's the right cypher on his shoulderboard.

Very nice, Joe! :beer:

If nothing else, he deserves a medal for that wonderful mustache!! :love:

He's a knight of the Johanniter Order. Those crosses are fairly common on Imperial era officer's uniforms. Kaiser Wilhelm had one on every German uniform that he owned. The cross in the photo has been cut a bit "fatter" than usual, but it's still the same cross of white cloth. http://www.johanniter.de/

Probably no one really cares, but just for a bit more information, the full name of the prince is Friedrich Viktor Pius Alexander Leopold Karl Theodor Ferdinand Erbprinz von Hohenzollern (1891-1965) who later became Fürst upon the death of his father. He was the father of the current prince, Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Joseph Maria Manuel Georg Meinrad Fidelis Benedikt Michael Hubert Fürst von Hohenzollern (born 1924). The current heir, Karl Friedrich Emich Meinrad Benedikt Fidelis Maria Michael Gerold Erbprinz von Hohenzollern was born in 1952 and is a member of the band Charly and the Jivemates, in which he sings and plays guitar and saxophone,. He married Alexandra Gräfin Schenk von Stauffenberg whose father was a nephew of the Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg who tried to assasinate Hitler. Erbprinz Friedrich Viktor is listed in the 1914 Rangliste as a Leutnant in the 1.Garde-Regiment zu Fuss and has the following decorations listed: RAO Grand Cross, HEK1, AB1, BT, HSH1, RumSt1, and Sic.F1

Very beautiful,Komtur! Stunning.

Those are stunning, Mervyn! Very beautiful.

All I can tell you is it's from the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic organization for young men.

I thought I'd see if I could help any and tried googling Schulz-Dornburg. There were so many pages I finally gave up. Most of the entries were either on an Ursala Schulz-Dornburg who apparantly is a very famous photographer, a Michael Schulz-Dornburg, a German child actor who only made one movie in 1937 and died on the Russian front in WW2, an architecht named Julia Schulz-Dornburg, and a Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg who was an orchestra conductor who died in 1949.

Very, very nice article, Chris. I thought it was kind of funny that your German captain has the same last name as the French general Maxime Weygand! :unsure:

Very nice photo, Chris!

Heiko, From the information I found on this website: http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/ that man is an NCO from the Polizeitruppe of one of the German colonies in Africa. On one of the pages there is a photo of a man wearing the exact same helmet with the same shoulder straps. The website says the Polizeitruppe were formed on 1 March 1892 in German East Africa and were separate from the Schutztruppe. They came under command of the colonial governor, not the military command. The white uniform was also used in the other German colonies too, so he could be from any of them, I guess. On 27 October 1906 a small yellow metal eagle was authorized to be worn just above the national cockade. On 16 March 1912 a small cord, in the imperial colors of black, red, and white, was authorized to be worn around the hatband by those of Wachtmeister rank.

Mervyn, most US sheriff's still have Posses, but they don't usually pursue criminals anymore. Our sheriff here where I live in Florida has a posse, but it is an unpaid, all volunteer force of citizens who own their own horses and they're used for search and rescue missions, searching for lost children, etc. Gordon, I apologize for hijacking your very excellent thread!

Mervyn, I no longer live in that part of the country, so I don't have access other than through the Internet. I did find a page on the Web about the history of the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office. The introduction states: On April 22, 1696 Thomas Greenfield was appointed by Governor Sir Francis Nicholson as the first sheriff of Prince George's County, Maryland. the first courthouse in the county was established by Sheriff Greenfield in Saint Paul's Church in Charlestown, Maryland. This was the county seat until November, 1696 when it was moved to a storehouse owned by Mr. David Small. The County seat then moved to Upper Marlboro in the 1720's where it still houses the County Government, Courts and Corrections Center. The original duties of the Sheriff included the collection of taxes, making public proclamations, calling the court into session, administering corporal and capital punishment, maintaining the county jail and enforcing the law. The office had no budget as the Sheriff was paid a fee for each service that was performed. For example, he might be paid a portion of a hogshead of tobacco for each prisoner in the county jail or for each paper of warrant served. Some of these responsibilities have become obsolete or have been taken over by other governmental agencies but the Sheriff has retained some of the original common law duties of the original Sheriff. You can read the entire page at http://www.pghistory.org/PG/PG300/sherifhist.html According to another Web page I visited Lt. Gen. Sir Francis Nicholson was a career British Army officer who served as governor, or acting governor, of several North American colonies (New York, Virginia, Maryland, Nova Scotia, Placentia, and South Carolina). He was royal governor of Maryland from 1694-1699.

Gordon, In reference to having the deepest roots, although I guess this is actually a fiction, since there was a change in government, the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office in Maryland, when I lived in the area in the late 1980's, used to have on their vehicles "Serving Since 1696" and they still have "1696" on their uniform shoulder patches as evidenced by the patch shown on their web site.