medalnet

I may have to translate this article on my web page into English over the upcoming holidays: http://www.medalnet.net/Red_Eagle_Order_Medal.htm The Red Eagle medal had no clear rules of how to be awarded. When renewed/reissued on March 10, 1871, 400 examples were ordered through the state chancellery. Initial awards were made to the guards of the grand head quarters in Berlin. Those were worn on the Hohenzollern ribbon. Wilhelm I. decreed in 1873 that the Red Eagle medals were only to be awarded to those military persons that never participated in a war. Those awards had to be made to enlisted and NCO ranks and only on the orange white ribbon. It was further OK to award the medal to court servants. Some medals were awarded in 1910 to Prussian citizens, but were disliked by the emperor. Medals were never again awarded for this purpose. Looking even further back to the initial medal with the FW IV on the reverse it seems to me that this medal was given out as a personal distinction of the emperor, mostly to officials/military personnel serving at court events. But this is just my opinion. Documents have not been seen yet, which underlines the rather personal character of this award.

Something to look at: Orders and Decorations in their natural habitat: Groh (the Saxon) and Oberst von Marchtaler (the Wuerttembergiensis)

Believe me it is! I had them in my hands.

Yes, sorry, batch means mini series of a specific number of pieces. I have seen roman numbering on Red Eagle Order stars as high as XXVIII = 28. I am not quite sure about the swadow. What do you mean? The black liner is stenciled, the red filled in in my opinion. This is why the later pieces mostly have faded red and missing pieces of the red.

The fact is that they are batch made. some pieces have even sequential numbering in order to piece a series of a batch correct together. One can easily observe this with Red Eagle stars. 90% has roman numbering inside the medalion center. The golden commander crosses of the Saxon Order of Albert show this as well on the joined insde the crown. Another add to what Brian said...the paintings are indeed stencil based.

Here the originanl Hanf & Zimmerman:

...no nothing to add. well explained. Let me maybe add as a general comment that there is a new series of fakes of the Red Eagle Order coming to the market. This one looks very similar to those I had in hand. The painting resembles those pieces made by either "Humbert & Sohn" or "Hanf & Zimmerman" during the 1850th, just like this one. Certainly one of the best fakes of imperial German orders I have seen so far.

Could you suply extreme close ups of the eagle painting and the oak leaf?

Yes, I do. this is the reason why I needed a new one. Let me know when I can have it back

With over 7000 House Orders awarded, even Godet was official supplier. My experience shows silver gilt rivets.

I guess one should pay attention to the other forums...I just posted a few pictures on the orders and decoratins part.... Here the link to it: Iron Cross 1813

...and the recipient:

...and the reverse:

Never having had in mind to lead my collecting interests away from enameled order decorations, I received this little group of medals with yesterday?s mail. The possible recipient was a man named: ?Schmidt?, which is unfortunately all the grand daughter could tell me. She was kind enough to take a picture of her ancestor and email it to me. You will see him wearing besides the Iron Cross the Russian St.George Cross, which unfortunately didn?t survive the last 192 years. Yet the 1813/1814 combatant medal survived and seemed to have been worn on an interesting ribbon. Made in one weave, it represents the Iron Cross ribbon as well as the ribbon of the commemorative medal itself. His 1848/49 commemorative medal survived as well. About the Iron Cross: the Iron core rattles and it looks like it was soldered on the top left frame tip, only. Besides, it is rather thick with about ~2.5 mm.

Those pieces always remind me of how sturdy enamel really is. Imagine the hammer coming down to fix those rivets...

Thanks guys. I am not sure what timeframe exactly, but definetly arround 1830th. It would be nice to find out about the recipient. yet this might be kind of tough due to the fact that this fellow must have been austrian besides the problem with the grades of those decorations.

and the reverse

below my contribution on minis.

Stogieman, The tooling was never made for bronze gilt pieces. They used the tooling formerly used for golden pieces to make the cheap end of the WWI timeframe bronze gilt order decorations. Ergo: There are golden pieces from the same tooling.

Did you test yours? There some oxidations that look rather not typical for a golden piece. gold does oxidizes, yet in different colors. I marked those places in your picture...

...and the reverse:

It comes down to the tooling. Tooling for golden order decoration lasts a lot longer due to the soft material. Since they had those, they would use them to coin/stamp the bronze gilt pieces. There are even commander crosses of the Ernestine house order made from gilt bronze in a hollow fashion. This explains the similar light weight. By the way, here is the big brother of the golden knight badge:

...and here is a GOLD one, scratch mark "W":

By the way, the bronze gilt ones are hollow made as well as their golden brothers and sisters. Especially Ernestine House order or the silver gilt MVOs