Austrian ribbon bar fakes again

[jabnus]

ok, i couldn't wait, first here's another picture i seem to had taken already?

the bar on top is the one i want to know, it looks kinda better in the picture but you get the idea:

other shots, just taken:

[jabnus]

sorry for spamming but either i do something wrong or i can't upload more than one picture, here's a picture i just took with the lamps light on:

i bought the bar because of the most right ribbon: pro deo et patria for non fighters, to go with my medal....

[jabnus]

back of the bar:

excuse me for the bad pictures, it's dark here and artificial light doens't allow me to take good pictures:

[jabnus]

Detail with even some rust, if this is faked then it was done very good, right?

If someone with more knowledge than me could please look at it and tell me if it's ok or not i would be thankfull.

Ribbonbars are not my thing but i do occasionally buy them to complete a medalset.

kind regards,

Gaston

[Guest Rick Research]

I think if you go through each ribbon and what it is--or is SUPPOSED to be--you will have your answer.

Even when the combinations make sense-- as the lower two Austrian ones do-- the massive production of tab back bars is also revealing.

Do you know anyone obsessed with tab back bars? Big, long, improbable tab back bars? By the hundreds?

I don't either.

Frankenstein parts.

I don't want to seem mean here so rather than just leave you the short and brutal answer, as a learning exercise, simply "read" the ribbon bar to reveal its false truth:

A ribbon or medal bar is the story of its wearer's life and career. This bar reads as FICTION.

1 =

2 =

3 =

4 =

5 =

6 =

7 =

[jabnus]

Hello Rick,

Thank you for your reply. Although i don't post much here i do read a lot of topics and value your contributions, so im glad you replyd.

As for this bar: i did try and understand the bar and it looked ok with me (but im no expert on ribbonbars).

Of course you are right if you say that is probably not very likely for someone to own and then sell so much of these special bars.

If you don't like this than that's enough for me, better to hear it now than look at it for the rest of my life and than finding out it was never any good. Thank you, Ill take the bar out of my collection.

regards,

Gaston

[Guest Rick Research]

But you have to READ the ribbons--

1 = Noncombatant 1914 Iron Cross

2 = Hindenburg CRoss for noncombatants

3 = Austrian WW1 Commemorative Medal (usually noncombatant without ribbons but not always)

4= Bavarian Order of Saint Michael

5 = solid red-- could be ANYTHING, but here is apparently intended to be some Austro-Hungarian peacetime award like a Franz Joseph Order or Merit Cross

6 = (impossible) Austro-Hungarian 1912/13 Mobilization Cross OR (supposedly?) 1908 Austro-Hungarian Jubilee Medal for foreign regiments whose "Chef" was Franz Joseph

7 = Bulgarian WW1 Commemorative Medal for Noncombatants

This combination would have us believe that the wearer was an OFFICER (#4) who joined the military between 1897-1907 (no 1897 Centenary Medal... no XXV Years Long Service Cross) in Prussian (there being no awards from the other non-Prussian regiments Franz Joseph was "Chef" of) Garde Grenadier Regiment 2 or Hussar Regiment 16.

This "officer" must have joined the army no earlier than 1902 to have missed a post-war XXV (with war years counted double)--

that means a Leutnant in 1904/05, Oberleutnant 1912/14, Hauptmann/Rittmeister 1914/16

in a combatant regiment (with no connection whatsoever to Bavaria)

with an Austrian and Bavarian pre-war award

28 to 31 years old in 1914

who NEVER served at the front.

That is the "story."

Easily enough verified as FICTION from Rank Lists, but those were not necessary because the ribbons themselves make no sense in this combination.

An apparently endless supply of real PARTS is being butchered in the mass production of FAKE bars.

The scary (and maddening) thing is--

sometimes

the combinations actually make sense--

"poisoning the well" for future generations of collectors who will not KNOW that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these are all churning out of the same "factory" Anno Domini 2007.

The thing is, I have been collecting ribbon bars since I was a child in the 1960s. REAL "super noncombatant" bars are very very rare. Which is why so much never used ribbon was left when Adolf crunched his cyanide pill... to be used to manufacture monstrous quantities of newly assembled fake bars today.

If God takes me home tonight, and my lifetime's collection goes on the market tomorrow... out of 700 or so German ribbon bars

perhaps 5 are this sort of combination

but almost always to some 60 year old former career NCO clerk ranked as an Oberleutnant sort of military Beamter.

Noncombatant groups are almost always "boring."

And out of that 700, how many are tab back? Maybe 60 or 70, tops?

Not endless dozens on eCrap fresh every week.

[jabnus]

Rick,

A very learning reply, thank you again for the long post.

Reading it like this makes indeed sense. I was thinking along the lines of someone doing adminstration or something, but the way you post it is so clear...( i DO have a lot to learn here )

Guess i have to wait for another pro deo et patria noncombatant ribbon to show up.

This one is off to the drawer with bad examples, maybe i can show it in the future to someone as a bad example (glad its a very small drawer)

Kind Regards,

Gaston

[Guest Rick Research]

I have a BOX.

[jabnus]

Glad im not the only one then ;-)

The thing is as you say, old parts used to make new bars, confusing and very temptiong to get! i waited a long time and when finally seeing a non combatant...well, i should have known better...

If someone ever comes by a non combatant, please give me a pm, it would be much appreciated.

reagards and good night,

Gaston

[webr55]

I think this fits in here:

Found this site which is advertising new, non-glowing ribbons made on a 100-year-old loom:

http://www.ordensammler.com/html/ordenbander___ribbon.html

[saschaw]

Hey, nice link - that's the well-known "raritaetensammlerclub" aka "cetra2003".

Caveat emptor ...

His ribbons may not glow, but I fear most of the orders themself glow ...

[landsknechte]

I wasn't sure whether he was hiding the Swastika on the devices by cut-and-pasting a bit of ribbon over them on the picture, so as not to have the items removed.

If you look closely at a couple of the eagles, you can see an almost circular "distortion" that that reeks of a Photoshop clone tool.

[saschaw]

Yes, probably. He's selling dozens of bars that are _banned_ to be sold on eBay Germany and Austria, but he doesn't get kicked for it. I offered once or twice Nazi stuff and all disappered from eBay again fastly, me threatening to be kicked - but he seems almost to be "allowed" to do so ...

[Guest Rick Research]

But it is VERY SIMPLE--

REAL items of actual historical interest are BANNED by the imbeciles at eCrap.

FAKE items being peddled as originals are NOT.

Real = BAD.

Fake = GOOD.

It's all in eCrap's happily, smugly mindless business prejudices.

Now I would take the position that "real Nazi" Officially Icky Stuff has and will always have a historical relevance, whereas brand new, albeit assembled from Third Reich PARTS stuff is

manufacturing and distributing modern neo-Nazi garbage and not only forbidden under eCrap's laughably absurd house rules but criminally illegal in Europe today.

But then I'm neither insane nor a criminal.

[Naxos]

Now I would take the position that "real Nazi" Officially Icky Stuff has and will always have a historical relevance, whereas brand new, albeit assembled from Third Reich PARTS stuff is

manufacturing and distributing modern neo-Nazi garbage and not only forbidden under eCrap's laughably absurd house rules but criminally illegal in Europe today.

Well said!

Hardy

[webr55]

And he's at it again - advertised as a Diplomat w/ Siam bar:

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

Italy and Romania:

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

Slovakian ribbon:

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

Memel w/ Romania:

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

And what would you think of this one, offered by the same seller?

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[Guest Rick Research]

What Mister Ohio All Brass Parts Frauds was for the 1990s, this jerk is for the new century.

I can only say that if the Third Reich had been THIS industrious in literally supplying divisions-worth of "gear" to the Wehrmacht, the war would have turned out differently.

Who knew that criminal greed and stupidity were more effective "motivators" than political ideology?

I dub him The Sausage Maker.

[Laurens Q]

I'm curious if the bar below would also qualify as 'austrian fake'. While the obverse looks rather OK, I tend to see similar backings and I wonder if some will be negative about that.

Laurens

[Guest Rick Research]

I'm not happy with it, though the devices look good. Interesting EK Spange which I have never seen before--and if he's got LOTS odf them, a distinctive item to watch for in his fakes-- though that also smears REAL old ones too. That is precisely the danger from this Dreckmeister using all original parts for his Frankenstein monsters.

BTW, I assume that the reverse above got mirror-imaged, since a real stamped backing should not have the pin and catch going that way!

Scanner reversed?

[Laurens Q]

Oops, while adjusting the picture in Photoshop, I flipped the reverse the wrong side! So that's my mistake

I didn't acquire the bar from that seller (or eBay), but when I went through this topic, I saw a similarity with other reverses.

Again, I saw nothing wrong with the obverse. So in the end it might well be another parts bar...

Laurens