Austria-Hungary Franz Joseph Military Merit Medal

[Coinguy89]

Let me know what you think of this piece, it was acquired at a pretty decent price at a local military show.

[hunyadi]

Looks like a nice original one - but the pics are a bit blurry. Make sure the crown and the medal are tow separate pieces. The medal should be joined by a hinged pin to the crown. Of interst is the red peace time ribbon with the hook device from another ribbon sewin on the back. This was a common practice to sew two tiny loops onto the uniform so that the medal could be hung and easily removed. The other method was sewing a horixontal loop that the ribbon could hang on, but in order to remove the ribbon and the medal one had to separate the ribbon and the medal to do so - a lenghty process and one that was a pain as you had to have the suspension ring within the folds of the ribbon - not hanging down off the back hook. From the stains on the ribbon I would assume that there was another medal worn beofre it when worn as a 'medal bar'. If you paid less than $75 you made out like a bandit.