A starter medal bar

[Riley1965]

Gents,

What would be a good Imperial medal bar to start an Imperial collection with? I ready to take the dive. I've already started with Austro-Hungarian Medals. I have three basic Austro-Hungarian medals with four more on the way. I'm a little lost, to say the least.

Doc

[Kev in Deva]

Doc,

I think something simple and tasteful would fit the bill to get you started on a very slippery slope, a German State Medal with an E.K. II (but less the Hindenberg Cross), suggest a nice Bavarian Cross III Class and EK II as they are often up for grabs.

Kevin in Deva

[Riley1965]

Doc,

I think something simple and tasteful would fit the bill to get you started on a very slippery slope, a German State Medal with an E.K. II (but less the Hindenberg Cross), suggest a nice Bavarian Cross III Class and EK II as they are often up for grabs.

Kevin in Deva

Kevin,

Thanks for the help. I'll start looking for one that I can buy next month.

Doc

[Steve Russell]

The Wuerttemburg Bars are also pretty common but very nice and many pre-1934 examples exist.

[Riley1965]

Steve,

Thank You for the advice!!! Where can I find a dealer for these medal bars? Where do you get yours?

Doc

[dond]

Or something like this.

[Riley1965]

These are some VERY NICE bars. Thanks you Gents!!! I can't wait to start adding them to my collection.

Doc

[Steve Russell]

Doc,

There are many vendors on the web. eMedals has very good quality but the prices reflect it. Still, they have high end stuff and you pay for their trouble to find the stuff.

http://www.emedals.ca/catalog_index.asp

Here are some others:

http://www.bretzendorfer.com/us/us_uskatalog.html

http://www.militaria-baldes.de/php/us_fram...062d938e9fa4437

And of course Detlev's great site for the wealthier and well-studied collectors. And other well-stablished auction houses:

http://www.detlev-niemann.de/index.htm

http://www.philipp-militaria.de/de_frame.html

If you want replacement ribbons, this site has a great selection to put strips back on those naked individual awards. But never pass them off as original of course should you trade or sell them.

http://www.worldmedals.co.uk/Rib/germrib.htm

If you are into bargains though, surf German eBay for the best deals. If your German is bad, then the next best is UK eBay for some bargains. Amazing what passes through these, but they may not sell outside Germany or Europe in some cases. then US ebay has some good stuff too, but it sells a bit higher in my opinion (supply and demand).

And then make sure you research as much as possible about the medals and bars. Lots of crap out there being put together. Restorations are fine (eg., missing medal replaced, etc.) but many are outright impossible bars even with original medals. Even those fake bars can be a bargain if the price is low and the individual pieces add up.

For starting out, collecting the common German State enlisted bars is both interesting and rewarding. Take a look at Don's great threads on 'Fighting Man' bars for inspiration. The officer bars start creeping into the high end enamel and the prices typically are 5 to 10 times more depending on the bars and medals. But that is interesting and rewarding too!Hope some of this helps. Steve

Edited March 11, 2007 by Steve Russell