Austria-Hungary Austrian rank insignia

[TS Allen]

Hello all,

I have an Austro-Hungarian artillery tunic that I bought a few years ago to make up for the lack of a proper Austrian uniform in the collection. It's a great piece, in wonderful condition, with all of the correct buttons and a very nice period liner. However, I've never been able to figure out the rank. Based on this site (http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/badges/badges.htm) the rank doesn't exist!

The uniform is the brown artillery style, without epaulettes, which I thought meant it was for a company-grade officer. The construction of the tunic and it's fine material would also suggest it belonged to an officer.

But, the rank insignia on the collar is only a single strip of 13mm-wide gold braid... there is not star! Is this for a junior lieutenant? A warrant officer (did the Austrians have those)? A cadet? Something else I've never heard of?

Any help would be appreciated, pictures are below.

~TS

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

There are two possible explanations:

1. it is a tunic of a Fähnrich with the star removed for some reason (any traces of stars on the collar?), or

2. it is a tunic of an officer cadet (Zögling) with no rank; the tunic is presumably from before 1891. You can read more about k.u.k. officer cadets' ranks on the same website: http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/kadett.html

A photo of the tunic would probably help.

Regards,

Lukasz