Unpublished Award Rolls: The THREE Thuringian Saxonies

[Guest Rick Research]

I was just talking to Daniel today, and we have decided that rather than issuing the Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Meiningen rolls individually and then at some point next year re-doing Erhard Roth's work on the Saxe-Altenburg Rolls, what we will do is COMBINE all three into one volume--

1) no flipping back and forth between three books

2) while higher in price as a SINGLE volume, it will still be cheaper than THREE volumes

3) since there is NO way looking at a medal bar to determine which Duchy issued a World War Ernestine House Order X, having ALL three Rolls combined, with our notes about other awards given to those holders will vastly simplify bar identifications.

4) REAL numbers awarded will also be possible for the first time since "combined" awards will not be listed-- and counted-- twice or three times but only the actual ONCE.

5) the other awards WILL be included from each of the three Duchies as previously mentioned in the Coburg and Meiningen Rolls threads. This will make as complete as possible a listing of ALL awards above the Silver Ernestine Medals.

6) I have the Altenburg Rolls, containing information not listed in Roth's transcriptions on deaths and returns so all three Duchies' awards will be treated in the same "New & Improved" way.

7) Daniel will PERSONALLY scour the Thuringian Archives for the "missing" 1916-1918 Meiningen Rolls to settle whether they are GONE or misplaced.

For those of you anxiously awaiting the COMPLETED Coburg and JUST FINISHED Meiningen Rolls, I think you will agree that a bit longer to wait for the COMPLETE TRIO will be worth delaying publication until later this year. We will then have as definitive a work on all three Thuringian Duchies as is humanly possible.

[Riley1965]

Rick,

Please let us know when it's ready for purchase.

Doc

[medalnet]

This ia amazing work !!!!!!

[Paul C]

Rick, Great work. I for one would like to have a copy of all the award rolls that are current available and published. I do not know what has been published. Would you be so kind as to do a separate thread and list the published award rolls?

[Guest Rick Research]

NONE have been PRINTED yet. I keep waiting and waiting to hear that the really truly definitely done-done-DONE Principality of Hohenzollern is available, but apparently they will be printed when SEVERAL of the volumes can be printed together to keep costs down. Not up to us, since we don't have the money to get them printed ourselves.

Partly this is our own fault as perfectionists because we keep finding more and more "nonexistent" material and ADDING to things we ourselves considered "done" but want to be PERFECT-- or as perfect as we can make them.

[Claudio]

Dear Rick and Daniel,

I can't wait to see your efforts put on a book. Your dedication and enthusiasm should be an example for every serious collectors and student of military history.

On a polemic note, I could say that, after this book will be published, you will see prices of the rarest and to most unknown medals to increase drastically.

Also past specialized publications had the same effect on the market.

Just my 2 cents.

Ciao,

Claudio

[Guest Rick Research]

Alas, that is so... which is quite odd given the sadly LIMITED sales of such work and the limited online collecting community. Yet word seems to "get around."

Still, virtue is its own reward--

for sure!

[ErikMuller]

Alas, that is so... which is quite odd given the sadly LIMITED sales of such work and the limited online collecting community. Yet word seems to "get around."

Still, virtue is its own reward--

for sure!

Well, you can note me down for a book for sure

Maybe it's an idea to open a book selling topic somewhere, were you can list down the volumes that will be comming and let people PM you their addresses, etc. for ordering? Because I think there are a lot of topics open on your yet unpublished lists and I'm getting lost at the moment to which rolls will be open for publishing soon

[Guest Rick Research]

Alas "soon" is a very relative term. Beyond the Principality of Hohenzollern, none even have an ISBN number yet. NONE have yet been printed. It looks like, sigh, at THIS rate it will certainly be the autumn of this year before any come out, since I believe Hohenzollern is being held for OTHER volumes to get printed simultaneously. Rather than ONE list, three or four will probably all come out at once.

We will keep you posted-- when these few ARE ready, the copies will sell out immediately and God knows when there may ever be second editions.

But first there have to be FIRST editions.

The WORK progresses, some labors are DONE... but page meeting paper remains for later, later, some time... later.

Five hours a day of typing, week after week after month after month is taking its toll. I;ve been at this "full time" since September, and it will probably take until June for all the editing and finding "extra stuff" making the rolls more useful. I find it takes the same length of time cross-checking and annotating as it does to transcribe.

[Ed_Haynes]

And hope that when The Day comes, the publisher (actually the copy editor/book designer) doesn't make a dog's dinner out of it (between first and second proofs). Have been struggling, and drinking, and weeping over such a situation all day today.

[Guest Rick Research]

God no! But then you have a REAL book with illustrations and ours is just basically neatly columned "typed" lists. Nothing fancy.

I've seen the proofs for the Hohenzollern volume and they will go "plunk" right into print from that. All errors will be ours. Well, MINE, mostly. I grew up reading Sutterlin but I can't do manuscript/secretarial typing. Luckily we have Loyal Proofreaders to catch us when brain doesn't see what hands mis-type.

Lots and lots and lots of work-- and it AIN'T for the pay check, after all of that.

[Riley1965]

I look forward to buying your hard work!!!

Doc

[Guest Rick Research]

Daniel got the Triple Combination working pages back to me and I am now going through the Altenburg rolls, making corrections and additions to the late Erhard Roth's transcriptions.

It DOES come out much more sensibly and easy to use with ALL of each class listed alphabetically and a column down the right side with A, C, and/or M for the issuing Duchy.

Daniel assures me that the 5,000 SMKs will fit in the published version. It may also be possible to add those lovely "little SMK"-looking women's awards after all.

[Blitz]

Remember to take a good loong break every now and then, 5 hours a day in this kind of work is plenty to handle, even for younger people.

[Guest Rick Research]

Here is a sample from the working pages, adding information in. This is a section of the combined rolls for the Commander "2bX":

This is all very neat and tidy. Nobody can see the room here with ancient reference books in piles all over within reach to find missing first names and look up birth and death years.

The column with awards between Ernestine award dates and birth/death years notes other Thuringian awards, so no flipping back and forth to see IF other such awards were made to that person will be needed-- you will be able to see in EVERY award's section what else that person had, to look up the other dates and units for those awards. This will save enormous amounts of time trying to identify groups: "No SMK, not THIS guy...."

The far right column indicates which state gave the specific Ernestine

A = Altenburg

C = Coburg

M = Meiningen

and when there is more than one letter there, those are the two or 3 states that made joint awards.

The introduction will give totals of each grade for each state. I am now finding errors where two of the states awarded the same decoration to the same person where the Roll masters did NOT catch the error-- or at least not by crossing out the duplicated award. They very often DID catch those mistakes and make marginal notes. So we are still "tweaking" the REAL, actually-awarded numbers. The lack of Meiningen's Ernestine rolls after 1915 is a gap that may or not ever be fillable.

But we think by COMBINING the rolls, this will be the best and most useful way to look through ALL three Thuringian "Ernestine" states.

[W McSwiggan]

Wow - this is a tremendous effort and contribution to the community of historians and collectors. Thank you!

[Daniel Krause]

...and to feed You a bit more....

Here are the award numbers actual known today. Still not completely done.

I counted the awards mentioned in the FIVE DIFFERENT ROLLS for THREE states, took the sum, but what is most interesting is the last column. It shows the awarded pieces. Number is of course much smaller because of all that combined awards.

Best regards

Daniel

[Guest Rick Research]

Subtract ONE from those HSH3aXs. I just found a guy who got TWO, same grade, not a "gemeinsam" award-- from different YEARS--and apparently nobody noticed. And him a Bavarian, too!

I wonder if he kept the "spare?" Entries combined and noted.

[joemiller]

...and to feed You a bit more....

Here are the award numbers actual known today. Still not completely done.

I counted the awards mentioned in the FIVE DIFFERENT ROLLS for THREE states, took the sum, but what is most interesting is the last column. It shows the awarded pieces. Number is of course much smaller because of all that combined awards.

Best regards

Daniel

Daniel, I forget what Rick said you were going to do with the merit medals of the three duchies, so this may be a dumb question. Do you have totals for the Gold and Silver Merit Medals for the three duchies?

[Guest Rick Research]

Altenburg yes-- there aren't many and they will all be in there.

Meiningen no because the rolls after 1915 aren't available. The golds yes... but that's still only partial.

Coburg, the golds yes, but not the silvers. There are too many of those-- probably about 9,000-- and most of 1917 is missing for their silver medals.

[Guest Rick Research]

I've finished. Those of you lucky enough to have the late Erhard Roth's Altenburg WW1 volume should be happy to know that there is a LOT of additional data that he did NOT include which will be in the Combined Roll-- company and battalion numbers, and every single "detached" officer he ONLY listed the current unit but not where the officer had come from.

A number of typing errors in unit numbers and spelling errors (some of them by the roll keepers) have been fixed. Now it's back to the "European office" and hopes to find the missing meiningen rolls.

Edited February 23, 2007 by Rick Research