Great Dane

It was the Danish Order of Dannebrog that was awarded on 22. May 1861. Unfortunately I have no info about the Swedish Order of Vasa award date. /Mike

I looked him up in the Danish state calendar. He was awarded his Danish Dannebrog knight cross on 22. May 1861 and my guess is that he received the Swedish order around the same time. At that time he was "Hess.-Cassel Major und Fl?geladjudant" according to the calendar and probably was awarded both orders in connection with state visits. Are you able to find out if the Kurf?rst went on a trip to Sweden and Denmark around 1861? And I agree with Carol I. Especially for foreigners, the Swedish orders was used to indicate the status of the award (the highest ranking was the Order of the Sword, followed by the Order of the North Star and finally the Order of the Vasa). It mattered less what their initial statutes said. /Mike

Nice photo! Maybe von Mackensen didn't want anybody to see that he needed a helping hand /Mike

He does claim that 'center and points are gold', but while I can understand that the centerpiece (being a separate piece) can be gold, how can the points be gold and the rest of the order not gold? Aren't the points an integrated part of the 'body'? The reason I started this discussion is that the Danish Order of Dannebrog was/is awarded in solid gold, but due to the fact that orders awarded to foreign recipients often wasn't returned after the death of the recipient they started to make it in silvergilt to foreigners (around 1910-20). I was interested to know if the same pattern could be seen with other orders... /Mike

Apparently gold versions do exist. At least according to this eBay seller: eBay Oranje-Nassau order The color does seem a little light in my opinion - could it be silvergilt instead of gold? Here is one of his pictures for future reference: /Mike

Magnificent items Matthijs, congratulation Out of curiosity: Whenever I encounter this order for sale at various dealers the badge is mostly (always?) in silvergilt, and judging from these pictures yours seem to be silvergilt as well. Was the badge ever awarded in real gold? And if yes, do you know when it changed? /Mike

Rick, The stuff you can dig up is scary... So Egon didn't see much action then... too young for the Franco-Prussian war and behind a desk in WWI? Thanks, /Mike

Rick, Glenn, A big thanks to both of you. I remember trying to find out more about him a couple of years ago, but not knowing more than his name I didn't have a chance (there are heaps of Egon von F?rstenberg out there - it seems to be an inherited name...). I should have known I only had to ask in this forum instead /Mike

My goodness! That was more than I had ever hoped for. Thanks a bunch, Rick! I didn't realize there were that many with the same name. I even bought Paul's CDs (to support the initiative), but apparently has to learn how to use them /Mike

See, I knew I had too little information... The award document is for the Danish Order of Dannebrog (Knight) In the document he is described as "Legation secretary at the Imperial German Legation in Copenhagen" I'm afraid that is all I know... /Mike

Hello gents, Imperial is not my area of collecting (not from lack of interest but from lack of money ), so bear with me if I provide too little information: I have an award document for a Egon Freiherr von F?rstenberg (dated 1907). Is it possible to find out more about this guy like his career and his decorations? Thanks! /Mike

Item #2 is the Order of the Golden Grain Item #4 is the Order of the Striped Tiger As for their value Liverpool Medal has some (and if you divide their prices by 2 you would have a realistic guess...) /Mike

The button is directly linked to the file. If I right click the button and choose "Save target as...", I get the pdf file. Did you try that? Could be you are experiencing the old MS IE 6.0 + Adobe PDF bug: "Opening a PDF file within Internet Explorer 6.0 sometimes shows only a blank page"... If it still doesn't work, Ulsterman's offer seems like the way to go... /Mike

Carol I, remember that - like Dave mentions - not all the sources are downloadable but some are only viewable online (no matter if you are in the US or not)... /Mike

Fully agree on that... Hmmm... I would really like to know the reason why e.g. "Neues Allgemeines Deutsches Adels-Lexicon" volumes 1-4 can be downloaded outside US while volumes 5-9 can't... /Mike

Use one of those 'anonymous surfing' apps out there... I needed an anonymizer when I bought the HD version of the Terminator 2 DVD. Each time you wanted to see it, it had to contact a license server and if you were not a US or Canadian resident (it checked your IP address) - bad luck and your money was wasted... /Mike

Apparently the ability to download or not is based on your IP-address. If you can 'imitate' a US IP-address it will work. /Mike

I can see that the winner is one of my countrymen, so German shouldn't be unknown to him... And actually his bid was made even after the seller (again) added the information that the cross was not included (yes, the seller included the cross in the picture, but if you read the text it says VERY clearly that the cross is not included). /Mike

That bar went for a whopping hammer price of 63000 Euros... Now add the fees etc. ... /Mike

Remember that high ranking persons had several sets (or subsets) of their decorations to be used on different occasions. One set belonging to Wilhelm II was sold at the latest Thies auction: /Mike

I think it's the Swedish Order of Vasa medal. /Mike

Yes, but that paragraph only refers to those who were entitled to both versions (the 'normal' 1911 coronation medal and the 1911 Delhi Durbar version). It is quite clear in picture #2 that this is the 1911 Delhi Durbar medal. Here is a Delhi Durbar medal (reverse) from Liverpool Medals: /Mike

Isn't that the Delhi Durbar version of the 1911 Coronation Medal? /Mike

Fortunately I have only rarely encountered this problem, but it happened a few months ago in a DNW auction and it really made me think: DNW was auctioning away award documents and letters belonging to Field Marshal John French. Each award document and each letter was a separate lot. This could have been an obvious case of 'group splitting', but on the other hand - The items for auction was not his complete set, so even if they were one lot it wasn't the whole picture. - Should letters/documents be separated or not? The letters were not related to the award documents. - If yes, then what about a wooden box also belonging to him? Also part of the same lot? I hope you see what I mean... I'm just trying to point out that some cases are obvious whereas some other cases are not so clear... /Mike

Hi Marc, First of all, we don't know if this group is 'identified' in the final auction catalog. But there is a silent agreement in the forum not to reveal the recipient of auction items which are auctioned off as unidentified, i.e. to not do the research for them and raise the price. I'm sure a few people in here can identify the recipient, so you could try to PM them /Mike