Hungarian War Medal Question

[Jason1]

Hi Guys, I have a question about one of the medals on a bar I have, its a Hungarian Commemmorative War Medal, WITHOUT swords on the obverse and WITHOUT a helmet on the reverse. I just want to know how scarce these are. I've only seen one other, and that was mounted in a group as well. The rest of the group consists on a 1914 EK2, FA Cross 2nd class, 1939 war merit medal, hindenburg cross with swords, prussian red cross medal 2nd class and 3rd class, then the hungarian medal.

[Tom Y]

Does it have a bust on the reverse?

[Rick Research]

Jason--these are quite uncommon, though they do turn up. A noncombatant medal should be on a white ribbon with a fairly broad red stripe near the edges, a very narrow white stripe, then a green stripe the same width as the red, with white in the middle--rather than the combatant medal's white ribbon with red edges and green horizontal "ladder" stripes.

I've seen these all jumbled, ribbons not matching medals, etc.

Now, if those are COMBATANT Iron Cross and FA Cross--as the Hindenburg Cross would seem to indicate they would be, then I wonder if the guy was simply issued the wrong Hungarian medal!

There was absolutely no requirement that German recipients of the ex-Central Powers WWI commemorative medals should have actually served on the Eastern Front. Most men only applied if they HAD served alongside Austro-Hungarian forces, but I've seen these medals (and the Austrian one) in groups to naval recipients who only served in the North Sea.

I've got a group to an ex-NCO, who applied for and got the Hungarian WWI combatant medal in 1942--they were still being awarded then. He had never served anywhere but France, and was simply "inflating" his awards to look more impressive in his Luftschutzpolizei uniform.

BTW I have never had an award document for the noncombatant medal, and only seen several listed for sale in groups.

There are three styles of combatant medal documents-- long narrow pink perforated to tear off several per issue page, long narrow pink non-perforated, and large style with graphic of horsemen galloping by cheering infantrymen. No clue what the noncombatant document looked like.

[Jason1]

No, no bust on the reverse, just the Latin inscription and dates, and it is on the ribbon that Rick mentions. The EK2, FA2 and hindeburg Cross are all combatants issue.