Coburg EH5bX Additions To Ernestine WW1 Awards Volume

[Paul C]

I have begun transcribing the EH5bX (Ernestine House Order Silver Medals with Swords date Bars) for Coburg and have completed 1914 through 1916, Unfortunately, except for January 1917 all of that year is missing from what I have, though it appears that 1918’s awards may be complete. This will take me the rest of 2010 to complete since it looks like there were more than 3,300 more for 1918.

Have I ever mentioned how much I h-a-t-e typing?

Needless to remark for those of you who have already got the Altenburg and Meiningen totals from the 2008 Ernestine volume, the “official price guide” prices for wartime Silver Ernestine Medals with Swords attachments from the three Duchies are… utterly upside-down irrational based on the vastly different numbers actually bestowed.

Totals of the Silver Coburg Medals with Swords Devices for the two completed years are:

1914 = 104 (remember: these required prior receipt of an EK2)

1915 = 1,167 or 1,159 (cannot be sure if there is one double that MIGHT be two people/ same unit and there are 7 joint awards from Coburg AND Meiningen which do not specify which of the two Duchies actually gave its Medal to the recipients)

1916 = 1,755 or 1,751 (4 are possibly “mit Jahreszahlen” rather than “mit Schwertern”)

1917 = I only have 118 entries, alas

Of the 3,144 awards 1914-17 transcribed, 2 went to Austrians and 241 to Bulgarians (almost all of them in Bulgarian Inf Rgt 22).

NOTE: The numbers above will NOT repeat NOT equate to the various Swords Bar year dates found on these medals. At least one Coburg EH5bX awarded on 30 April 1915 is known to have had the Swords Bar “1914.” The Rolls give NO indication as to WHICH year bar was actually handed out with any medal. So while annual TOTALS are accurate, the specific Bars can only be approximated.

Max Hans in his “Die Orden und Ehrenzeichen von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld und Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha 1689-1935” (Coburg, 1986) has

1914 = 105

1915 = 1,183

1916 = 1,721

1917 = 2,043

1918/19 = 4,727

so he obviously combined both the Master Roll and the Coburg List BUT did not deduct errors caused by duplicate entries not stricken on these.

Those of you with the triple Ernestine Duchies 1914-1918 awards volume can pencil in these new additions so far from the Roll currently being transcribed:

The following recipients of the CM2X got a Coburg EH5bX from 1914 through 1916—

Becher, Hugo

Berg, Erich von

Cramer, Ernst

Deubner, Friedrich

Dusch, Alfred

Fischer, Karl

Grams, Kaspar

Günsche, Karl

? Hofmann, Hermann ? (maybe)

Hopf, Arno

Hortmann, Hermann

? Kaiser, Kurt (maybe)

Klug, Albert

? Köhler, Ernst (maybe)

Kondziella, Peter

Kranz, Wilhelm

Muff, Johann

Naumann, ? if Wilhelm (maybe)

Reich, Franz

Reissenweber, Hermann

Schoder, Otto-- ? if Schöder

Schreiber, Gustav

Stichling, Otto (whose name was “Stiehling” per one roll)

Tausendfreund—add first name Franz

Wachtelborn, Albert (not Wachtelbern as published)

Walther, Friedrich

The following recipients of a CK got a Coburg EH5bX in 1914 or 1915—

Alban, Willy

Berg, Erich von

Grams, Kaspar

Hopf, Arno

May, Hugo

Reissenweber, Hermann

Thanks to Paul for posting this update since I am not online. Rick Research