Iron Division medal

[Canutt]

Hello,
what about this medal?
The skull seems to me too... too.. tooo smiling. Are you agree?

[Christian L]

haven't seen much of them - so

but i know, that this is one of the most faked medals of this period
christian

[stogieman]

I believe that one's...

... an aknowledged fake. But I cannot remember the last real one we've seen!

[Canutt]

... an aknowledged fake. But I cannot remember the last real one we've seen!

Take a look here, Rick!

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ighlight=mario

[Robin Lumsden]

Mario.

From the photo, the one you posted looks OK to me. The ribbon is certainly the right type - I've been searching for a piece for years! The medal should be in silvered brass, with traces of the word 'ALPACCA' stamped on the ribbon ring.

[VerKuilen Ager]

I'll take the other side and vote thumbs down. If original, at the very, very least it's been heavy cleaned, removing the original gray toning.

[stogieman]

beyond the lack of color....

The features and characteristics are nothing like Histaria's. I'm sorry, but IMO, this piece is not manufactured during the period it was awarded.

[Canutt]

Regarding the ribbon, what about this one?

[Robin Lumsden]

Mario.

That's the wrong ribbon.

The ribbon on the medal posted at the top of this thread is the right one.

However, it was not uncommon for Freikorps medals to be worn on the wrong ribbons by their recipients. There is a photo in Woolley's latest book of a German Police officer wearing the Iron Division Medal on the ribbon of the Kurland Medal (one half black and the other half white - the second medal in your photograph). So even the wearers of these medals made mistakes.

[VerKuilen Ager]

The fellow in Woolleys book has all the correct ribbons. He also had one of those bars with the clips on the front that allowed easy removal of the medals. It looks like he took them off at some point and put at least the last four on in the wrong spots. It's fair to conclude that the wearers could be confused about what went with what. Today, we also commonly see these medals on replacement ribbons, which IMHO has been the result of lots of screwing around by collectors and dealers in the last couple of decades. However, I don't believe there's any good evidence that, in the 1920 or '30s, freikorps medals were commonly worn on the wrong ribbon.