PUBLISHING unpublished Award rolls - part two

[Daniel Krause]

Hi Imperials,

as all of You know, Rick L. is destroying his hands by tyyyyping award rolls.

I cannot leave all work to him, so I - and other friends like Uwe - do the same here in Europe.

Finally we will publish our work in some books in the well known Michael Autengruber - style.

It HAS to be printed, any digital form cannot survive more than 10 years. I learn that just now.....Uwe wrote something 1994 on an Amiga computer - no way to put in on any modern machine. Means to type everything agaaaain - no ocr-scan did work without lots of mistakes..........

So, but...

Soon will come out:

- Princely Hohenzollern, known from Ricks thread

- Sachsen Coburg Gotha, known from Ricks thread

- Sachsen- Weimar, known from Ricks thread

- Sachsen- Meiningen, known from Ricks thread

- W?rttemberg - THE ORDERS - in WW1, Military Merit, Crown and Frederick with swords in WW1

- W?rttemberg - THE DECORATIONS - golden Military Merit Medal, Cross of Merit, Wilhelmscross

- W?rttemberg - non-w?rttemberg decorations given to members of the W?rttemberg Army in WW1

- Saxony - non-Saxon awards to Saxons in WW1

....and we plan to do more things, but thats all for the next months.

This kind of award rolls will not be printed in quite big editions. There are just a few people interested in it.

But, to estimate the needs a bit better, please let me know who is seriously interested in which volumes. As more as we can print, as cheaper they will be.

Please let me know. Hopefully for Christmas the first Volumes will be ready.

Best regards

Daniel

[Guest Rick Research]

The editions will be TINY. Because neither Daniel nor I have the funds to pay for larger quantities of books to "sit around" and wait to be sold off one at a time, each printing will be small...

and when it sells out, will be used to print the NEXT batch.

This makes the costs much higher and the "rewards" laughable. I'm estimating a magnificent remuneration of literally 3 cents per hour for my labors. It is not ABOUT money, but about getting previously unavailable reference data OUT THERE and made available to those without access to these rolls or the ability to read geriatric 19th century Sutterlin. Simply ALPHABETIZING all these chronologically arranged rolls makes the unusable usable. When I think of the time that George took laboriously searching literally thousands of pages every time ONE name was needed--

well, this is my way of repaying that devotion and that friendship by passing along the information to new generations. (Even I am not immortal.... )

So there will be no author's copies (if we want one of our own books, we will have to buy our own books) and alas no "freebies" to reward good friends and helpers.

Remember: Senior Cat gets food before I do, so while HE may be able to eat, Starving Authors Fund? depends entirely on YOU purchasing these volumes when they come out.

And remember: if there is not ongoing demand for a volume, it will be bumped from future printings in favor of something else when a new volume is ready. So if you want Principality of XYZ, better buy when it comes out or it could be a long-time-to-never until the next printing.

Daniel will be handling the European end. I will have a few of all the available books here for THIS side of the Atlantic to ship-- because it costs less (every Euro comes off our payments) to ship a box of books than one at a time air mail.

We will keep you posted of availability, but as Daniel has posted, please let him know NOW for an approximation of how many volumes to get out in the first printing.

I know, obviously "how much each?"

Daniel will be able to advise on that after seeing the interest:

the MORE we are able to sell, the less they will cost to make (and the more we Starving Authors will be able to get as our share).

You have SEEN some of the results from the "non W?rttemberg awards to W?rttembergers" in the Wilhelmskreuz/Bulgarian Bodenseeflotille thread:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11005

I have helped Daniel with dates and additional data for the W?rttemberg Military Merit Order roll, and like the work I have been doing, these are MORE than transcriptions of rolls, as the earlier Roth/Geile volumes were. We have ADDED significant data to the listings for enhanced information that will be of great use

and save a LOT of pencilled margin scribbling, we think.

I have listed what there is in the rolls for the states I am working on in the other thread and will continue to post progress made there for those:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=9995

if there are any questions about exactly what will be in the volumes Daniel is working on, just ask here.

[Guest Rick Research]

Oh, yeah

Put ME down for one of each of course.

See, there is already "one gone" from the First Editions.

W?rttemberg collectors are gonna the Krause Trio:

from the WM3 rolls I identified this 21 year

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7912&hl=K?ppelle

Even I haven't seen the Friedrichs Order X one yet, but THIS sucka:

[attachmentid=54588]

is FINALLY gonna get a name: I'm down to TEN WM3 and Hamburgs from the "Non W?rttemberg awards to W?rttembergers" Wonder Volume. Just need to figure out who got to keep BOTH W?rttemberg Orders what with their insane give-things-back-and-get-them-again regulations.

So post your interests in the volumes above here so Daniel can take firm orders for the printer. Ready to go are the W?rttembergs and Hohenzollern. Saxe-Coburg will be available whenever "next" is but we'll probably save up for another group of books coming out together. God knows I won't have anything else done but Saxe-Weimar BY Christmas, which'll mean early '07 probably before that one is printable.

[Ulsterman]

I'll take one of each volume.

Well done !

[Paul L Murphy]

I am definitely interested in one of each.

[Deruelle]

Daniel,

I have sent you a pm with my commande

Regards

Christophe

[David Gregory]

Daniel,

Put me down for one of each volume to be published, too. I only collect the odd medal bar as a side line, but the lists will be useful to me when researching officers' signatures on documents and working out what they also received.

Are there any plans to make electronic versions of the lists available? Perhaps together with the printed versions for serious buyers? It would certainly help people to find names and sort by units, etc., more quickly.

Many thanks in advance,

David

[Paul L Murphy]

David makes a very good point. It might work out cheaper for you (and take up less space on our bookshelves) if it were done on CD ROM. The Naval & Miltiary Press brought out the Casualties of the Great War in that format and it was a good success.

[Guest Rick Research]

CD Roms, such as Paul Chepurko's EXCELLENT (and I might add still available) Rank Lists, are a Godsend for valuable hard to find OLD books, tidied up and unstained and enlarged. When my poor old CURRENT computer is replaced and HAS bells and whistles, I will get THOSE, since decades of handling my originals has left them (like me) much the worse for all the wear and tear.

But THESE lists are retyped and readable in modern typeface we think best suited to paper. We are perpetually scribbling in margins when new data comes along-- as it always does. That is the prime reason we have ADDED research information to what would otherwise simply be transcribed rolls. My super-combined Coburg rolls DO annotate other grades of that state's awards to the same recipient, as well as oddball ones that will make identifying anonymous groups easier. Also, by SPECIALIZING, we offer people who couldn't care less about Sachsen-Weimar to only get what they WANT, rather than one giant CD of information of no interest to them.

Having had my previous major online work STOLEN from me, my personal objection to putting typed lists out in computerized form is that all that does is make MY severely under-remunerated labor all the easier for some techno-thug to simply pirate and "cut and paste" as their "own" work. At least with a book, if it is rescanned, the copyright piracy is provable, and if they all have to be manually retyped... at least the Bad Guys have to DO that. There is literally little enough recompense in this to make its loss to those under-endowed with ethics easier.

A "Master List" of all combined is something I will leave to Daniel. I am having enough to do hunched over circa 1860 grade school penmanship from elderly clerks and typing that up so that anybody can now read it! ONE at a time! I've got at least a year's work ahead of me as it is! The Super Dooper Big All Inclusives have to wait UNTIL each and every little section is done first, anyway.

[Blitz]

I'm also interested in owning one of each. Books that is, not digital versions..

[JBFloyd]

Count me in for one of each.

[Willi]

I will take one of each volume!

[Guest Brian von Etzel]

I am interested in one of each.

[Rick]

Sure, sign me up for one each. I may be able to pull out more aviation names/units. Thanks, Rick

[Guest Rick Research]

Rick-- I just finished the Sachsen-Weimar Wilhelm Ernst Kriegskreuz roll today and here is a potential flyer--

the unit is SO abbreviated that it might be several things--

BRENDEL (no first name at this point) in 1916 Lt dR ex of Inf Rgt 94 "jetzt "E.A.F.A. 11." I am assuming that the "E.A." is Ersatz Abteilung (though this is the ONLy entry among the 364 to be written this way) and while "F.A." COULD be "Feld Artillerie,"

I'm more inclined to think it was Flieger Abteilung 11

??

Aviation recipient CORRECTION from Neal O'Connor's Thuringian volume:

Otto Tischer, not Fischer.

And the neglected Air Shippers--

Goehring, Kurt, Lt dR Luftschifferabteilung 28 (1916 #58 on the annual listing)

Hartung, Erich Lt dR Feldluftschifferabteilung 44 (1917 #98)

(Luge, Walter Hauptmann on staff of Commander Heimat Luftschutz (1919 #5) was PROBABLY connected with Flak, but ??? home defense flyer I suppose too...)

Sorge, Max Lt dR Feldluftschifferabteilung 16 (1918 #92)

and those are the only aviation/related ones Neal didn't include.

Rick

[Claudio]

Dear Daniel and Rick,

I am also interested to purchase one of each volume... very well done for both of you!!!

@ Daniel: Also CDs don't last more than 10 years? I thought they were, if correctly stored, almost "eternal"...

Ciao,

Claudio

[Guest Rick Research]

Claudio: I have recently been informed by the Gods Of Computer Retail that such previous standbys as floppy disks and zip disks are now consigned to the trash heap with Beta format video tapes (for those of you old enough to remember THAT evolutionary struggle) so while CDs may be "permanent" TODAY, who can anticipate what "systems" will be functioning in 10 years, now that these THINGS that look like Star Trek data crystals, the size of small lighters are coming in.

A book will ALWAYS be...

readable anyplace there is light enough to see by.

The League for the Extension of the Middle Ages

[Ed_Haynes]

So true, Rick: BUKZ IZ ITT!!!

(and welcome back to tha land of the living - and to here too )

[Mike Dunn]

I would be interested in one of each as well. Mike

[David M]

Exactly, books rule I would be interested in the Princely Hohenzollern issue, if still available

Edited December 3, 2006 by David M

[Guest Rick Research]

These have not been PRINTED yet. We are trying to get the number of definite orders in ADVANCE because the printings will be extremely limited and it is easier to know we will have 30 or 40 sold and print that many than have 20 printed but 40 wanted. It may well be years before second editions come out.

Being Poor But Honest Scholars we are seriously under-capitalized and do not have the funds to have 100 of each (there are DOZENS of rolls being worked on) pre-paid and lying around (like my friend Neal O'Connor did with his WW1 aviation awards books) to sell off 1 at a time.

Work is progressing. Yesterday I was able to add 100 birth years, 27 death years, and 41 first names to the 43 that had none in the 111 Wilhelmskreuz mit Krone X awards, for instance:

we are adding LOTS of extra added research value to these never published before rolls.

[David M]

Hi Rick

Dont feel rushed. I am just very happy someones taking this huge job to describing these rolls. I myself am busy describing the 1821-1831 episode of the kurhessian House Order of the Golden Lion. My entries at this moment look like this:

From the lists of Commanders I. Class:

08.01.1831

Georg Carl Wilhelm M?ldner von M?lnheim (kurhessischer Adelsstand: Wilhelmsh?he 07.01.1831 mit v. M.). Geboren Breuna bei Wolfhagen 27.09.1782, gestorben Hanau 07.01.1863; Generalmajor und Generaladjutant, Commandeur des Regiments Garde-Gendarmerie zu Pferde, provisorischer Ministerialvorstand im Kriegsministerium. 01.11.1811 WK2a, 04.08.1815 OEH, 23.07.1821 OPVM, 07.03.1812 FEL 13.12.1822, 1821 DE. Arndt S. 451; Schr?der S. 897.

Were the foreign recipients are concerned, I have a shorter entry, not describing the other awards and just the HGL. The double date at the FEL entry has to do with the date of award and the date of permission to wear it by the Elector.

David

[Guest Rick Research]

I just sent Daniel everything that I could add to the list of Gold Military Merit Medals. It is amazing how many of those recipients later got the ORDER.

One of the things Daniel has been working very hard on, and is among the features which will make his volume a superb research tool, is to account for W?rttemberg's frankly demented "system" of handing out awards and then requiring that they be turned back in for any subsequent decoration, which meant that until late in the war, a W?rttemberg officer who might have been decorated FOUR times would have exactly ONE award to wear. Cross referenced, the research enhanced rolls will allow "invisible" and returned (and repeated) awards to be seen beyond what ended up as the final awards when the war ended.

I've been happily adding massive amounts of data to the "lowly" Wilhelmskreuzs' rolls, since these sources

add substantially to the endless omitted first names, and allow people with the same last names to be distinguished from each other. For all their BIZARRE awards bestowal practices, nobody beat the information that the kingdom of W?rttemberg published on their officers and military officials: all first names and full dates 9and places!) of birth, as well as specific ("Mexico 1865") combat operations before the World War. Obviously data THAT obscure can't be included (though it makes W?rttemberg the ONLY imperial army where it is possible to identify specific campaign bar entitlements to the "future" Coloni9al Medals), but full names and birth and death dates where known will help sort out who could or could not have had a Third Reich medal bar, or who was a veteran of 1870 and so on.

[Daniel Murphy]

Rick and Daniel,

I am interested in one of each. Hopefully they will not come out too close together, I am just a poor working schmuck in debt up to his eyeballs.

Dan

[Sal]

One of each for me as well gents...gotta get into the game.

T