A Medal Bar to discuss........

[Stogieman]

This one bothers me....... mostly because of the placement of the LS Medal.

[Stogieman]

Reverse......... Very strange construction

[Guest Rick Research]

I cannot conceive of an NCO level type civil servant (Cross of the General Decoration and General Decoration) not ONLY working himself past those 30 years of service decorations to an ADDITIONAL Crown Order AND Red Eagle Order (30 years at NCO status and then... how many more years after a promotion spurt that miraculously places that 50-ish BEFORE all that ex-NCO above "Captain" level????) but most of all

with the PRUSSIAN LIFESAVING MEDAL AFTER PEACETIME ORDERS.

Prussian regulations NEVER changed-- the Lifesaving Medal was ALWAYS pre-eminent before ALL peacetime awards, no matter what. No living Prussian could possibly have slighted their PRIMARY award for civil heroism in this fashion.

As is always the issue with hook backed bars where anybody anytime can mess around with anything, the XXV years service cross was not bestowed on NCO level people until AFTER World War One. Almost certainly, if this was a real bar, what was on there was an LD2.

The bar certainly looks old. But the biography it tells is complete fiction.

[Bob Hunter]

I take it this picture is from a site and the ribbons cannot be easily subjected to blacklite?

[Les]

I take it this picture is from a site and the ribbons cannot be easily subjected to blacklite?

Bob, I don't see any of the trademark "Stogieturf" green background, so it's probably not in his hands, and is on a site elsewhere.

Les

[Stogieman]

Correct. eSpew Bar. I don't think it matters if they glow or not on this one. Like I said, the position of the ls medal really bothered me. REAL Prussians had it in 1.place all the time, everytime... barring actual combat awards.

[Bob Hunter]

I was just thinking (a dangerous activity for me without good adult supervision) that if this is an example of an assembled bar then the perp has done a good a job.

[Stogieman]

Yes, bu therein lie some of the problems...... extremely unusual (Note the word unusual, not impossible) for Pre-1915 style trapezoid bars to have a neatly sewn backing...... the brass wire "hooks" are not what I would normally expect to see either.

[Bob Hunter]

...a little too neat and too orderly then...

[Stogieman]

I wish to clarify one thing here...... Bars like this certainly exist. Trap bars with backings. Trap bars with wire hooks. Trap bars with both.

The thing is when there is such a glaring error in precedence, one must then begin to question every little thing about the bar.

[Stogieman]

Here's a nice and correctly mounted Life Saving Medal on a Prussian Bar

[Guest Rick Research]

I agree-- the combination as it is APPEARS TO BE OLD.

But the hook back is

a) TOTALLY screwed up

b) a simply impossible group with the awards hanging on there, in the precedence they are hanging on there

Now MAYBE this ancient NCO level civil servant had a Red Eagle Order MEDAL and a Crown Order MEDAL and only got the position of the Lifesaving Medal shockingly/stupidly wrong...

this sort of thing is why I don't like hookback bars without documentation.

The difference between a botched ORIGINAL job and a we'll never know is: no award documents, no photo in wear.

I wouldn't want the hook back in my collection.

[Stogieman]

Reverse of same. Yes, different style. Mounted wrong, one would have to seriously question the "shocking pink" backing material despite the fact that we do actually see this color material quite often! What's very nice about this one is it isn't bled into the ribbons as is so often the cases with the more vibrant backing materials. A little rain and/or sweat and things get messy real fast!

[Gerd Becker]

Guys, isn?t it possible, that he just mounted them, how he valued them himself? Agreed, the 25years Officer LS is weird, but the rest looks okay to me.

Gerd

[Guest Rick Research]

Gerd, no, two entirely separate career paths. The Cross of the General Decoration was given at something like 30-40 years of service at noncommissioned officer level (whether military or civil service). There was exactly ONE noncommissioned officer who, at the personal exemption of the Kaiser, received a Crown Order 4 at 50 years of active duty

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Now if Ferdinand Caville (Bezirksfeldwebel of the 81st Infantry Brigade) took FIFTY years for a literally unique Crown 4th, the guy in the bar starting this thread would have had to have been about... 93!

And though the Nazis had a literally psychopathic contempt for the Lifesaving Medal (to the point that most holders simply ignored its monstrously degraded precedence after 1935 and wore it as they pleased according to the older regulations) there was no higher civil decoration in Prussia. It was given precedence over EVERY peacetime order-- even a Knight of the peacetime Hohenzollern House Order wore the LIfesaving first. It was such an enormous big deal to have that insignificant looking little medal that NO recipient who had The Top Thing There Was would have lost it among the routine clutter of automatic everybody-gets-them-eventually long service decorations.

[Bob Hunter]

Rick, a question slightly off topic. Was it correct to wear a long service schalle below the medal bar?

[Guest Rick Research]

Yes, until the 1913 design changes. Prussian ones are sometimes found in that funny rectangle medal bar version for civilian fashion wear, or pinned through a ribboned award.

[Gerd Becker]

Thanks, Rick. That makes sense of course.

Gerd

[Stogieman]

Concur on the LS Schnalle. Worn below the bar and occasionally pinned to the bar, or even as an enameled dangly from the bar.