Identification of ribbons on ribbon bar

[drspeck]

Dear all, please see the attachments. I received this ribbon bar as part of a larger lot of ribbon bars and miniatures. I bought the lot because of a German bar, this British piece was for me a bonus of sorts.

 

Since British military is not my main area of interest I struggled at first to identify the first 2 ribbons, but I think I have found what these are. My hypothesis is that the first 2 ribbons represent the Order of the Star of India and the order of the Indian Empire. I cannot find any other British medals and/or orders with a similar ribbon to the Star of India. Can anyone confirm?

 

Also, if we are talking about the order of the Star of India, how many recipienst are we talking about? I cannot find much information on the numbers.

 

I'm also missing the victory medal so my best guess is this is the first row of at least 2 rows...

 

Best. Peter

[Great Dane]

If you flip it upside down, could it be the second row with 2 foreign ribbons at the end (and the Victory medal in the first row)?

[peter monahan]

18 hours ago, Great Dane said:

If you flip it upside down, could it be the second row with 2 foreign ribbons at the end (and the Victory medal in the first row)?

I like this better.  Although the Star and BWM ribbons are swapped in position, and there is no Victory Medal, I think it quite unlikely that anyone would have gotten both the Star of India and the OIE.  Typically those two come on a bar with 4, 6, or even 8 other medals.  So, two foreign orders on an incomplete or, just perhaps, 'made up' bar. 

 

Sorry, I know that's not a lot of help.  

[Great Dane]

It does seem, however, that the 1914 Star is normally mounted with a red-white-blue ribbon, not a blue-white-red...

A mystery... ?

[peter monahan]

On 02/05/2021 at 13:43, Great Dane said:

It does seem, however, that the 1914 Star is normally mounted with a red-white-blue ribbon, not a blue-white-red...

A mystery... ?

That one went right past me!  D 

 

So, if it is a real medal bar, it is meant to go  with the WWI pair on the right.  It is a puzzlement.

[Tony Farrell]

It's a CSI and a CIE most likely, i.e. the lowest grades within the orders and the most numerous, though in the case of the former (Companion of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India) 170 companions could hardly be described as numerous.

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

On 13/06/2021 at 14:27, Tony Farrell said:

It's a CSI and a CIE most likely, i.e. the lowest grades within the orders and the most numerous, though in the case of the former (Companion of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India) 170 companions could hardly be described as numerous.

Agree! Even the width is correct. There probably was a second (third, fourth etc.) row  to it, which was lost somewhere on the way. I wonder who it belonged to.

[drspeck]

On 13/06/2021 at 14:27, Tony Farrell said:

It's a CSI and a CIE most likely, i.e. the lowest grades within the orders and the most numerous, though in the case of the former (Companion of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India) 170 companions could hardly be described as numerous.

 

That's a very low number, thanks for the information Do you also have the numbers for the other classes? I reckon that unless some photographic or other evidence is going to surface we will never know who it belonged to....

[Aberdeen Medals]

The medal riband bar looks right in every respect, with professional (or if you prefer very neat) hand stitching and is mounted in the correct order of wear, as illustrated.

 

The normal practise for riband bars worn in the era 1920's-1970s, was for ribands to be mounted stitched down on strips of buckram, and the riband strips then stitched onto the tunic - riband bars with hinged pin fittings were also seen / encountered in that era, but far less commonly encountered the older the date.

 

Clearly the recipient would have been entitled to other medals, which would have been mounted on second and or third rows, below the top row of ribands here illustrated.

 

Uniform protocols for how to wear medal ribands vary over time, between services & between different Empire and Commonwealth countries.

 

From memory, I believe the protocols for wearing ribands in India in the inter-war years, dictated that no more then 5 ribbons could be worn per row, and that if a top row (as in this picture) had 4 x ribands, then the second row would have five!

 

As information.

 

 

 

 

[Michael Johnson]

I'd suggest that the missing bar might be:

Victory Medal; India General Service Medal 1908; General Service Medal 1918; Delhi Durbar 1911 or 1935 Jubilee Medal.

[Zulu_00]

Throwing a spanner in the works here, but could the white ribbon be a Polar Medal?

[Cerrig-Man]

On 27/11/2022 at 00:28, Zulu_00 said:

Throwing a spanner in the works here, but could the white ribbon be a Polar Medal?

 

I was going to suggest a polar medal. But I'm not sure whether there worn at the end of group. The lack of vicitory medal is easily explained, by that ribbon being on the next row?