Big medal bar on Ebay

[Claudio]

Dear all,

On Ebay I found this medal bar being put on a Ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6229514926

The combination looks quite incredible, but I am quite skeptical. The Ebay seller has also a SEHO Kumturkreuz of the same medal bar's wearer.

The ribbons look too clean... and on the other hand the SEHO ribbon looks so ruined! I would definitely have a blacklight test. Furthermore the backing is not cleanly made. Strange for such a spectacular medal bar with so many enamelled orders! The order missing must be the Danish Dannebrog order, which you can sometimes (but rarely) encounter on German imperial medal bars. Why is only this particular order missing from the bar? Strange, too! Was it too tough to find and put it on the bar or was is taken away from someone because was in Gold and wanted to sell it separetely? Another thing that bothers me is that evidently this guy was either a medical officer or a beamter (see the Prussian RKM and the Prussian War merit cross for civilians), but he nevertheless was awarded with an incredible array of military/bravery crosses and the SEHO with swords. Mmmmh... strange.

What do you think? I would really appreciate your comments on this one!

Ciao,

Claudio

[Guest Rick Research]

AGHHH! I missed that that Dannebrog was MISSING!!!

Put me on an ice floe and send me out to the polar bears.....

VERY strange combination, and I am not entirely convinced the Saxe-Ernestine actually IS a Knight 1st rather than a Knight 2nd-- it sure looks silver at a distance, doesn't it?

BUT: that is definitely a Godet backing, and I'd take this to be "actual wartime" and so in the period when long services weren't awarded.

SOME kind of strange staff/HQ type, indeed. No luck in the navy, which the backing seems to indicate.

[Ulsterman]

Don't Danish orders get sent back to the Palace after death?

I don't like it, but you never know.

Edited November 25, 2005 by Ulsterman

[Claudio]

@ Rick: the SEHO looks to me like a RK 1. Kl., silver gilted. Here I am posting the image. Furthermore the seller sells also his Komturkreuz SEHO, that's why I tend to believe that is a 1st class cross.

@ Ulsterman: I am not aware of the practice of giving back orders for the Danish Dannebrog order, but I think that if that foreigh order had been bestowed on German citizen, it would have been unlikely that the family of the deceased person would send it back to the Chancery of the Dannebrog order which was in a foreign country. How could that chancery know that the order recipient has died and request the order to be sent back?

Ciao,

Claudio

Edited November 25, 2005 by Claudio

[Guest Rick Research]

Actually, I am aware of people who foolishly asked the Danish Orders Chancery in recent years about an actual award date for known German recipients being sent QUITE frosty communications that someone who received one in 1908, say, was OBVIOUSLY dead and return it forthwith!!!!! I'd say casual questions of theoretical interest aren't WELCOME, apparently. (What DO they do in all their SPARE TIME these days?.... "Four awards this year! God! Last year we only gave out three! I'm going to strike if this workload keeps up!")

A couple of Fridays back, there was a paperwork group on Weitze for a 1911 recipient of the Prussian Crown Order 4th Class who died in 1938-- 1938!!!!-- whose widow was billed and paid the RM (12, as I remember) to keep it.

How DID anybody know? Was there an Orders Chancery employee who read ALL obituaries for mention of Orders holders dying?

What in God's name would a NAZI "Orders Chancery" have DONE with... returned Prussian Crown Orders 4th class? Was there a Prussian State flunctionary coming in on full time pay right up to May 1945 logging in the odd Red Eagle 4th Class being returned once a week? Did he (or another full time pensionable?) send out nasty dunning letters DEMANDING returns "or else?"

(And what good are returned Dannebrogs issued with the royal ciphers of DEAD monarchs? They aren't reissued with the wrong Initial-And-Number!!!)

In the mid-1980s, when the MMJO was down to two surviving members and I had frequent dealings with the Bavarian War Archive, the Archivist there had taken over the duties of the Order's Secretary. MMJOs WERE being returned to the Chancery, apparently in the not entirely delusional expectation that at some distant future time, perhaps Max Josephs which had been reissued to recipients down from the time of Napoleon might AGAIN be handed out in some Future Bavarian Kingdom. Not all have been returned, obviously, but presumably many have, from recipients who did not have them taken away in 1945 or whose families kept and sold them after their deaths.

The British are quite... odd ... about Orders returns as well.

Some things aren't a good thing to ask The Official Authorities about!

[Stogieman]

I cannot publicly comment on this bar... it's been on my watch list since it posted 2 days ago! ;>)

[Ulsterman]

Hmmmm... so construction and context point towards originality. The man who owned it must've had a very interesting career.