Dolf

N? 45, the new addition arived today. Messerschmitt Bf 109 K-4, from Group III/JG 27, Mars 1945, Germany. (Apparently they just used the same cast used for making the previous 109 G, and gave it another painting In fact the canopy for the 109 K model should be pretty different from this one, as the 109 K used the Erla or Galland canopy, which improved the pilot visibility) No info about the pilot! I used a large pic of Cape Byron, the most easterly point of Australia, as a background (well, after some work on Photoshop to make the flash spots on the background pic to disappear, you can even see the light house on the 2nd pic ), even thought I believe these birds never fought in that part of the World. Just a test Dolf

Thanks for the confirmation. That obviously justifies why he got those German WWII TR awards, the funny thing is why he also got post WWII Portuguese awards! Specially that one which is more a civilian than a military award! Dolf

Very nice Group! I wonder what your Captain may have done to have WWII TR awards (he was in the Afrika Korps?) and Portuguese awards issued after 1960! Dolf

As Dave points ou, it's indeed the Portuguese "Ordem do Infante Don Henrique", founded in 1960 to commemorate the 500 Years of the death of Don Henry the Navigator, son of King Don Jo?o I. The Prince Don Henry is the man who founded the School of navigators in Sagres, Algarve, of major importance to the Portuguese discoveries by sea. (Please check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_the_Navigator ) I'd only add that it is awarded for (sorry in advance for the poor translation) : - relevant services to Portugal, within the country or abroad - for services expanding the Portuguese culture, or for the knowledge about Portugal, its History and values It is awarded to Portuguese citizens and foreigners. Please check this page (Unfortunatelly only in Portuguese) : http://www.ordens.presidencia.pt/ Dolf PS: Btw, I've just re-read your post and apparently you were mainly interested in the cased Medal! I don't know about that one, maybe a better pic would help, but it seems to be a Medal commemorating the 500 Years of the death of Prince Henry.

OoV, You don't need all that huge percentage of white around the Doc. If when you scan it you crop it for scanning only the Doc itself (as below) the result will be much better. Of course in this case as I copied youroriginal pic aqnd cropped it, now the file is too small, but if you do it yourself when originally scanning it, I'm sure the result will be just fine. Just my 2 cents, Dolf

The red enamel on that particular piece is maybe one of the nicest of them all. Well, maybe, as others also have a very attractive red enamel, such as the T3V1, or the T3V2 (straight line sub-variation), or the T4... I was almost tempted to name them all... A beautiful Order, no question about that, with a beautiful design! But to be honest, there is not one single Soviet Order (from those I have) that I wouldn't find attractive, so... Maybe, just maybe, the OoG is the one I'd find less attractive... maybe because it doesn't have as much of that unique Soviet red enamel Dolf

He!he!he!... It should be mandatory for posting clear pics! I must say I completely agree with Rick on this one, scanners are almost always much better than digital cameras for this kind of detailed views! Unfortunatelly my HP PSC 2355 all-in-one is simply a disaster for stuff that is not completely flat, the only thing it's good for is for scanning pictures, anything on paper, but not good for 3 dimension stuff! So I still use my old UMAX Astra 1220P for the Medals, as the result is much better than with my more recent digital camera, a Canon PowerShot A 80. Digital cameras are only better for larger stuff, as for taking pictures of a Display case containing a number of pieces. Dolf

Enjoy, Gerd, I know how much you love this Order (also one of my favorites) There is another one, a researched screwback T2V2 posted here, but I guess you saw that one before: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5876 Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf

And the only T4 I'm keeping. S/N 373714, obverse. Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf

T3V4, S/N 350603, obverse. Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf

T3V3, S/N 320255, obverse. Dolf

Closeup of the reverse. Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf

T3V2 (straight line sub-variation) S/N 247582, obverse. Dolf

Closeup of the reverse. Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf

T3V2 (curved line sub-variation) S/N 199206, obverse. Dolf

Same, reverse. Dolf PS: Research tried twice, in both cases a dead-end!

Hi Gerd, Here are my T3 and T4. T3V1, S/N 105747, obverse. Dolf

Thanks a lot Steen. Dolf

Thank you Steen. Very interesting site you have there! Congratulations for the great job! Dolf PS: Btw, why is it I have an "Object not found Error 404" page when I try to search for Soviet Generals starting by the letter "C"? Chuikov, for example, starts by "C", right? Dolf

From what I can see, the Russian language seems to be much more difficult than I would imagine! Dolf