Württemberg KDM 1866

[Tom Y]

In 1840 Wilhelm II of W?rttemberg established an award for veterans of all ranks of the Freedom War. It was to be made of captured French guns and inscribed with a Fraktur W on the obverse and on the reverse the number of engagements the recipient participated in, from 1 to 14. Those for up to 11 engagements are known to exist.

In 1849 it was reinstated with slight modifications: a Roman W on the obverse of that for one engagement, and a Fraktur W on that for 2 for the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848. This award is rare, as there was only 1 battalion of W?rttemberg infantry participating.

In 1866 it was revived again by King Karl for the Seven Weeks' War, this time siding with Austria against Prussia. It bore a Fraktur K for Karl and was for one engagement only. A Schnalle with a wreathed and crowned W was awarded for 2 engagements.

This is the 1866 version coupled with the 70/71 Prussian KDM.

How soon they forget

[Wild Card]

Hi Tom Y,

Thank you for an excellent presentation on this series of awards. If I may, I would like to expand upon it a bit with some illustrations of the awards which you mentioned.

First, with regard to the 1840 series, there were two obverse and two reverse patterns which were probably necessitated by the dies breaking. This happened rather frequently in those days. Using Die W?rttembergischen Medaillen von 1797 - 1864 by Ulrich Klein and Albert Raff, as a reference for type identifications I am showing below obverse type 1 on the left and obverse type 2 on the right.

[Wild Card]

Here (below) we have examples of reverse type 1 (small shield) on the left and reverse type 2 (large shield) on the right. To keep matters interesting, these are further subdivided into subtypes of both with and without a period at the end of the inscription. Unfortunately, my limited collection does not have all of these variations for illustration.

Up to the awards for five campaigns, there are several combinations of obverses and reverses for each. Curiously the awards for five campaigns are found only with obverse type 1 and reverse type 1 (with a period at the end of the inscription) while from six campaigns on, all awards have obverse type 2 and reverse type 2 (with a period at the end of the inscription).

[Wild Card]

Here is an example of an 1849 award. Thanks again Tom Y.

[Dave Danner]

Great presentations, but you missed the most important aspect, the barking dogs

[Tom Y]

Barking dogs? i thought they were laughing babboons

Seriously, thanks for the praise, but it should really go to Herr Doktor von H. All I did was paraphrase his research.

Dave, your 1840 3 Feldz?ge. Could zou show the obverse?

[Wild Card]

A good point, Dave, thank you for mentioning it. Do you have any information on these variations? Another die replacement? For reference, below, is a non-barking (laughing) example.

[IrishGunner]

Here's the 1866 Karl version...

[Ulsterman]

Pretty cool. I'd love to see a contemporary CDV of one of these being worn. Maybe this year......