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Please welcome green ribbon specimen. Close relative of this one.

I see you are deadly serious about this "replacement hypothesis" James :)

And the last one - photo of Peter Michailovich count Stenbock.

Now this photo of full councillor of state (medical corps division). Uknown person. Photo made after 1905 in Brest-Litovsk.

Next will be the photo of Lieutenant General P.F. von Parkau. This photo was made in Tiflis between 1906-1912.

First will be this photo of Lieutenant General Konstantin Konstantinovich Bodisko. Photo was made in 1898.

Some amazing (by their quality and lion presentation) photos of Russian military men, that I was able to find. Hopefully all lions aficionados will like them.

Interesting thing - I found exactly the same order as one that was posted by Markus in post #79 (second row left one) but with.... green ribbon. Isn't it nice? It seems that standing lion and superimposed crown are going together for this art&science order. I will post pictures in couple of days in the new thread (devoted to this order and I (if it is ok with Markus and the owner) will repost these beaties in this new thread together with some interesting additional examples of this order). Cheers, Nick

I wonder if 19 century Persians were confused by all this multiform and multicolor order... Nice one James!!! Thanks for this info! But now we don't have our precious lion and sun specimen with non-green ribbon. Good thing I didn't get used to this red ribbon "looks exactly like lion and sun" piece Could you tell if the superimposed silver crown (specimens #42 and #78) is a 1) indication of additional merit 2) indication of class 3) caprice of manufacturer And really interesting one - why standing lion in case of #78??? I wonder... Military division of college? Cheers, Nick

Then this statute indeed was a practiced one Thanks for this info. If multicolor ribbons were in use (at least for higher classes of this order), then it will be reasonable to assume that military/civil (standing/lying) gradation was in actual use too and the only way to distinguish between "foreigner" order and "civil Persian division" order is the color of the ribbon (or civil Persian division had plain green ribbon too? any records?) or document. Sounds like "mission impossible" Completely agree James. All attributed orders (or orders in attributed groups) that I saw had green ribbons. Cheers, Nick

Hi James I see some of this portraits before. When I said "we don't observe" I meant present days. No doubts many of these noble men have multicolor ribbons ... Just like it was prescribed by statute. It could means that 1) everything was working right by the book for top-brass guys (and maybe for all others not so lucky guys, but for how long after introduction of this statute/regulation?) 2) painters knew the statute 3) every ribbon on orders with standing lion is replacement, if it is green (I just couldn't believe in this scenario) What really puzzles me is that we don't see these ribbons on the market together with standing lions orders in higher classes. Not to mention the lower classes with standing lion. Real bummer that only lying lions are visible on portraits (actually only in one portrait) and we could treat at this as an indirect evidence that Persians get lying lions too (indirect - because I think this portrait was painted before 1842 (?) or am I wrong (?)) Thanks for creating this interesting portrait/photo compilation. Best regards, Nick

First of all don`t forget that they completely abolished this "old vicious awarding system" in 1946. A brave new world ... Scraped and recycled is one opportunity and another is garage sale ... Let`s hope that their will be no cases of overfeeding :lol:

Progress report For some unknown reason foreigners (civil men and military men) got their orders with lying lion and on green ribbons. Military persians got their orders with standing lions and civil with lying lions. Color of the ribbons for military personel varried with rank of recipient. The only problem is that we don`t observe these multi-color ribbon specimens (not to mentioned the quantity of orders with standing lion on plain green ribbon). We have "statutes" that couldn`t be confirmed by our current experience. So our next stop - a group with lion and sun order for persian military and/or civil man. Well, I think the chances that we will see such group are pretty low... In the next couple of days I will post some new observations. Cheers, Nick

Sorry James, but this explanation "dilettante dealers replace all ribbons" could work in one, two or three cases, but not in 99% cases. And 99% of all orderswe see on the market with standing lion have green ribbons. And this ribbons are not new one. As for different shades and colors - I think its a usual thing for order with 100+ years of history. I suspect that between Firmans stated practice and actual awarding practice was a huge gap. All sources (including nice article and a short note by late sir Wright) implicitly states that "we are not sure" And they are all using these official "statues" as source of their information. Cheers, Nick

"No marks in sight". The key word "in sight" The badge is definitely not marked, but the star easily could being marked under upper fastening of the pin (I mean the breast star with screws). Mint (and private workshops) marked higher classes as often as lower classes. I just couldn't understand why they didn't mark all orders, but only some of them. In case of two digit codes it will be fare to say that 1) they could be found only on two-screw pieces (and two time-concurring lower classes) 2) mint marked (and continue to mark) all these late two-screw pieces without any exceptions (at least all pieces that I saw or my friends and fellow collectors saw - they all bear this two-digit codes) Cheers, Nick P.S. This "long-ago-made-pieces-from-war/pre-war-Mint-secret-storeroom" hypothesis is really dear to your heart mate :lol:

I think they had huge problem with glue-no-rivets type, because these pieces sometimes literary were falling apart. So they try to go back to rivets and later on decide to use more safe type of hardware - two screws. We really don't know much about war and post-war organizational structure of Japan Mint.

I really think it is beyond the realm of remote possibility... Such perfect matching is simply impossible to achieve by mixing. Not to mention patina... Certainly you can clean it, but I just couldn't imagine Mint people in the process of doing it :lol:

Thanks for posting this interesting addendum James. I've got only one question. Why all lion and sun orders with standing lion have green ribbon??? (excerpt one that have red ribbon and was shown to us by private collector) At least all orders that we observe nowadays... What are they - replacements? All of them? Please don't hesitate to go into more and more details Cheers, Nick P.S. Am I correct when I assume that the source of all these information is the same book, that Michael mentioned Persian orders 1808-1925 by P.C. Mulder // Ordenshistorisk Selskab, Copenhagen, 1990

Sorry mate, bit I think this scenario simply will not do it - just think about enamel shades, patina, central mirrors contours ... Nope. I think this strange concurrent existence may be a product of a) some experimentation phase that Japan mint was going through b) Japan mint had (and has) different branches (sections?) that used different approaches for fastening jewels I vote for scenario b) Regards, Nick

Glad you liked this one Brian! Kind regards, Nick P.S. And many thanks for your really interesting blog entry's ;)

All books devoted or mentioned Persian orders have the same kind problem... Bummer... Anyway if you'll be in the mood you can always PM me your mail, I'll reply, you will send this page or pages to me and I'll try to do something about it. Thanks, Nick

By the way, if C.P. Mulder is right, then 1) there was an "astronomical" number of military man in Persia - judging by the number of Lion and Suns with standing lion 2) the only way to differentiate between Persian civilian award and foreigner award is document

I hoped you like it I will post a new thread completely devoted to medal of this order. Cheers, Nick