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    The Campaign medals and crosses are mounted in a mish mash order of their being awarded. 1870, then 1864, then 1866, then 1864again. Personally, to me it is a beautiful bar mounted in 1895, so no Centenary medal. It was just mounted the way the veteran wanted it mounted, he valued some of the campaign more than the others and had them mounted that way. With the yellow backing I would say he was in a cavalry regiment with yellow facings. Because of the above I believe you are wrong.

    Dan Murphy

    Edited by Daniel Murphy
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    Guest Brian von Etzel

    Could be right Dan, I'm just not seeing anything in my mind except fakes now after that RAO thread with Andreas. I'm liking well worn ribbons on bars more and more rather than the pristine examples that pop up on mega-bars regularly.

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    Brian,

    You reflect my initial reaction. As George Seymour would often say, ?It looks awfully fresh.?

    At the same time, Daniel? s points may hold something that explains this. The oakleaves indicate ?alive in ?95?; but no Centenary medal (deceased in, or by ?97?). If such is the case, which I think is a possibility, this could explain the lack of wear. Just an observation.

    Best wishes,

    Wild Card

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    Guest Brian von Etzel

    After 100+ years, actually 2005-1895, I'd like to see the rings taking shape under the ribbons. I'd love to see this one close.

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    ...strange doin's in Tyler, Texas... :ninja::rolleyes:

    The seller pulled this item, and the other one, before the auction was due to close with no explanation other then the item(s) was no longer for sale.

    The "iffiness" of the other item, combined with some of the suspicions raised in this thread about the authenticity of the medal bar (or specifically when it was assembled?), and the fact the seller cancelled the auction strongly hints at both of the items being in the same category.

    The fact the items were pulled doesn't mean Stogie's query has been answered or that anyone has convinced him that it was real/fake.

    Les

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    Guest Brian von Etzel

    I just posted this in the Anhalt thread but look at the way the ribbons are just 'old'. Not wasted or abused. Notice how the ribbons have a way of just forming themselves around the medal rings. That's honest, real, age. Not all bars age the same, but for me, I'll take a little sign of time as a hint to originality.

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    I just posted this in the Anhalt thread but look at the way the ribbons are just 'old'. Not wasted or abused. Notice how the ribbons have a way of just forming themselves around the medal rings. That's honest, real, age. Not all bars age the same, but for me, I'll take a little sign of time as a hint to originality.

    Brian,

    The bar you posted is a good case in point, about age/aging. Silk ages and deteriorates, and there is nothing that can be done to stop or prevent that from happening. The molecules that form the silk break down (albeit slowly) over time even if the item is left alone, not handled, kept in a dark room at a standard temperature and humidty. Like people and out skin, silk ages.

    The newness and stiffness of silk (like our own skin) starts to sag and show signs of "age." In the sample you posted, the silk shows wear and fraying, but also....how the silk has started to collapse and shape itself around the suspension rings. That is part of the aging process.

    I agree with you that not all bars age the same, but when there are no signs of age, that raises questions and doubts.

    Les

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    Guest Brian von Etzel

    Les, begs the question, what will the owner of these original bars have in 250 years? Fragments of material hanging off metal with awards attached to the frame? Like a skeleton? Surely there must be an atmosphere of some gaseous combination that would halt the deterioration? The cost of course would be prohibitive to an individual but hopefully some military museums will invest in the process and keep specimens alive for a thousand years.

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    Les, begs the question, what will the owner of these original bars have in 250 years? Fragments of material hanging off metal with awards attached to the frame? Like a skeleton? Surely there must be an atmosphere of some gaseous combination that would halt the deterioration? The cost of course would be prohibitive to an individual but hopefully some military museums will invest in the process and keep specimens alive for a thousand years.

    Silk is very difficult to preserve. Battle flags are perhaps the most common item made from silk, found in military museum collections. See the following link for a discussion of some of the basic issues:

    http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/xf-pres.html

    The brief article makes four sensible suggestions that anyone can follow: (1) keep the item(s) as dust free as possible, (2) keep it in a light-free environment...if possible, (3) keep it as flat as possible, and (4) maintain or control the temperature and humidity in a stabile enivornment.

    It's worth mentioning that archaeological finds in nothern China have contained "ancient" silks upwards of 1000-1500 years old that appear freshly or newly made with vibrant colors. The references do not mention how flexible the cloth is. What is known is that cold or freezing slows down almost all known chemical reactions, and this might be one avenue of approach to slowing down the aging process.

    Chemical treatments require that whatever method is used, that it can be reversed, if sometime in the future a better method is found or that the method used didn't work.

    Keep items in the dark? As the article in the link mentionds, there's not much fun in having something and not being able to see it.....

    Conservationists are struggling with the issues. Each silk item in a collection represents a unique set of problems: died silks with imbedded pigments (and whatever chemicals went into the pigments), lead based pigments and weighting agents, the relatively small size of samples (for example, a ribbon has only so much material and a limited amount of material for testing what method is best), and the problem is compounded when there are several ribbons on a medal bar, each piece of silk that has it's own special chemical considerations. Look at it along the lines of a housewife having to shop for a family of five, with each family member having their own special dietary needs and allergies and not necessarily many things they can all eat.

    So, what can we, as collelctors do? Perhaps, as little as possible and following the four recommendations made in the link, and here. The less -we- do, the less the damage that we may be doing and perhaps the greater the chance of stabilizing the piece(s) sometime in the future.

    Les

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    Guest Rick Research

    How many Napoleonic awards have kept their original ribbons after just reaching 200 years or so? Not many at all.

    That's probably the fate of our 1914-18s. Don't know about the 1930s-40s synthetics.

    You just can't ever tell. I had a Hamburg Hanseatic Cross loose in a documented group, stored away flat, acid free paper, in a cedar chest. While it spent the end of the '70s and early '80s in a frame on a wall that NEVER got any sun, for the last 20+ years it had been tucked away...

    every few years I'd find it, and it was OK.

    Then last year, when I unwrapped it on a periodic nostalgia trip the ribbon had gone all stiff, and when I touched it, it frayed into powdered chunks like something from an Indiana Jones movie.

    Its time had sorrowfully just come, and that was that. :(

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    The seller pulled this item, and the other one, before the auction was due to close with no explanation other then the item(s) was no longer for sale.

    The "iffiness" of the other item, combined with some of the suspicions raised in this thread about the authenticity of the medal bar (or specifically when it was assembled?), and the fact the seller cancelled the auction strongly hints at both of the items being in the same category.

    The fact the items were pulled doesn't mean Stogie's query has been answered or that anyone has convinced him that it was real/fake.

    Les

    Hey Guys,

    Just as an FYI..... The Crown Order with RAO ribbon DID have a disclaimer that it was pre-1945 manufacture and not WWI era (hence jeweler copy etc).......I'm thinking it was one of the ones that Thies sold in his last auction a few months back. Thies had about 5 pages of 'jeweler copies', most of which brought 500 euro + bids (not counting the 20% commission and 20% exchange rate difference).

    I did get an e-mail from him stating that the auctions were pulled do to medical reasons.

    For what it's worth....

    Cheers

    Mark

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    • 6 years later...

    This guy has been doing this for a while. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe he was a member here for a short time until he announced his intetions on making and selling of fake bars. He thought he would get a warm welcome but instead was roundly denounced. All his bars are mint. Not a worn ribbon in the bunch.

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