BB&Co

[Tom Y]

To further cloud the BB&Co Halbmond issue, I just got a Bavarian 25 year Feuerwehr Schnalle marked:
Weiss & Co
D(Q?)uellhorsts Nachf.
München
It's extremely well made of cast gilded brass and of a type I can't find listed. When my PC's back in operation I'll post a scan.
Any comments?

[Rick Research]

The ampersand "&" has never bothered me. I have often seen it used in German.

Eduard Quellenhorst was absorbed by Weiss "sometime in the 1880s" according to "Court Jewellers of the World." How long they would have double-marked, I don't know.

This piece being cast confirms my suspicion that casting rather than die work was a characteristic of Weiss pieces. Their WWI Bavarian Military Merit Orders certainly give the appearance of being cast and (rather sloppily) hand finished. I've never been a "fan" of their work--gimme a Jakob Leser product, any day!

[Tom Y]

Hey, that instant notification's spiffing.
No, the problem isn't with the ampersand, but the "Co .

In the previous Halbmond threads there was a large camp who thought they were possibly made by a vBritish company. This is evidence that Co was used by German companies.

[Rick Research]

Weiss always used it. So did Godet & Co at various times of their ever-changing names, as did Friedla"nder & Co, just to name some of the major awards makers.

Seen it in many period advertisements of commercial products, as well as the French version "Cie." Just "style" and "product" marketing. Red herrings.

BTW No "instant mesaging" (what the heck is that?!), just floating through here "live."

[Bob Hritz]

BB&Co. is the Bastian Brothers and Company. They had offices in the US and Europe. I have owned many US wings made by BB&Co. , as well as Turkish Galipoly Stars. They made medals and insignia which were distributed all over the world and acted as contractors for many uniform accessory suppliers.
Bob Hritz

[McCulloh]

bob
i mentioned bastion bros when this thread first began over a year ago. however, 3 things make this less than likely;
1. bb& co. was the us registered trademark of binder bros, which had an affiliate (and still does) in Ludenscied. BB & co. still exist in Patterson new jersey and I have had long chats with the present owner (son of the guy who ran it from 1910-1965). he says no evidence of us stars being made.
2. bastian bros catalogues well into the 1920s do not list any gallipoli stars.
3. there is evidence that the bb& co. type stars were handed out during the great war IN TURKEY!

JeMc
p.s. I have employed a young turkish history student to look into this matter at the Osmani archives-time will tell..

[Frank Heukemes]

Gentlemen,

Of course "& Co" is a typical (former) German company form. In contrast to the English "Co", which as you know means "company", the German "&Co" means "und Companion". The full company form of such a firm would be in most cases be like "Müller & Co KG"

Cheers, Frank

[Tim Tezer]

The BB&Co. examples WERE DEFINITELY the awarded pieces that were presented to officers by the Turkish Govt. in WW1 (I've been preaching this for some time, but nobody seems to care). They were NOT made in Turkey, however, and are believed to have been made in Germany or Austria.

I wrote a letter to Bastian Bros. many years ago regarding this, and had no response. I find it very hard to believe that an American company would have been contracted to make these. I've also had people insist that they were made by the Birmingham Badge and Button Co. in England before the war, but since the award wasn't instituted until after Turkey's entry into the war, this is not possible. The maker is still a mystery, but most likely German.

Does anyone know if Binder Bros. had a hallmark?

Tim
see my web site on Turkish awards:
www.turkishmedals.net

[Rick Research]

Tim, nice to have you back again. Your website is great. We restarted posting types of the War Medal stars down in the International Forum.

I may get a thread started on the documents (since the ones I have were all awarded to Germans) going in here.

[VerKuilen Ager]

As a long-time collector of U.S. insignia and resident of the home of Bastian Brothers Co., I'd like to try to help put to rest the speculation that somehow Bastian might have been the manufacturer of the BB&Co Turkish "Halbmond." The chances of this are absolutely nill, and here are a couple of reasons why:

1 - When they abbreviated it, Bastian Brothers Company was "B.B. Co." not "B.B. & Co." This is a subtle but significant difference. "B.B. Co." means "the company named B.B." while "B.B. & Co. means "B.B. and their partners or campanion owners." Ain't the same thing.

2- More often than not, the company name was spelled out (they may have wanted to avoid confusion with a competitor who used "B.B.& B." - Bailey, Banks, and Biddle). Even when abbreviated it was accompanied by "Rochester, N.Y." or "Roch. N.Y." I recall talking to an employee who explained that every emblem was considered an advertisement. Joe Schmoe attends a veteran's encampment in Ohio and gets an attendee's pinback.* On the reverse is the Bastian name and location. Joe goes home to Omaha. Six months later his Moose lodge needs some medals. Who ya gonna call? Bastian Bros.


2 - Bastian Brothers Co. was a union shop. Their pieces were typically littered with union "bugs." This example, only an inch in size, has no less than 3.



3- It makes little sense that either German or Turkish sources, in the midst of the most intense economic straits, would trek off to Rochester for a supply of badges from what was a premium supplier (in a former enemy country).

4 - This Turkish star is simply not Bastian Brothers work. Except for their pinbacks* Bastian was famous for their double die work. In looking through my collection, I could not find one Bastian example that didn't have male and female die applied, allowing presentation of the company name and union info in finely detailed relief on the reverse. Furthermore, U.S. manufacturers during this period were almost exclusively using a 3-piece hinge, pin, and catch (with rolling lock) totally different from the one used on the B.B.& Co. Halbmond. In fact, during this period, we could expect to see the "drop-in" version of this catch. Again, totally different from this Halbmond.

So, in summary: if Bastain Brothers had made this piece they would have probably spelled out the company name (if they used an abbreviation it would NOT have been "B.B.& Co."), the city and state would have been presented along with the name, there probably would have been a union mark, the reverse info would have been in relief (not incised), and the pin and catch would have been radically different.

While this still doesn't get us closer to positively locking in who did make the Turkish piece, I hope we can, once and for all, scratch Bastian Brothers off the list.

* The term "pinback" is commonly applied in other collecting circles to what is more casually called "celluloid" pins or "buttons" -- while the celluloid is long gone, those circular lapel thingees with a stickpin fastener are probably most familiar these days in their "Vote for . . ." form.

[McCulloh]

Hi Tim and Verkuilen
(Brilliant post Verkuilen, by the way: What do you think of the new Osprey book on the Freikorps?):
Binder Brothers existed both in Ludienschied and in America. The original jewelers were cousins of some sort and AFTER the Great war (eg 1919-1921) the Ameican branch (which trademarked BB & Co.) pumped capital into the overseas family business and manufactured some items, presumably under the BB & Co trademark. After @1922 the two companies went their separate ways, with Binder Bros. still in the business of making finer costume jewlry on both sides of the atlantic and interestingly- orgnization pins/badges (like the British Labour party badge etc.). these companies all have web sites.
Binders in Germany got bombed out in 44-45 and they have not responded to my inquiries. They did however have an RZM number and made a variety of party merchandise in the Third Reich.
As you mentioned last year Tim, there is very strong evidence that BB & Co stars were presented in Turkey in the war. However, subsequently we have seen an NCOs' star which is BB & Co., so maybe it was not only an officers' award.

I am approaching this in 2 avenues.
1. I called in a favour owed by a patent attorney buddy of mine and he has tasked one of his Summer interns next year to track down exhaustivly who owned BB & Co in the world (esp. Germany) and
2. Via Prof Norman Stones' assistance at Birkent University, I have offered a cash reward to any enterprising graduate history student who can come up with an answer from the Turkish archives. I've also requested any and all information regarding awards of the star to germans and Austria and and Bulgarians therin contained. I have had one taker- a young lady named Fatemah. So far, no luck.
Cheers,
JeMc
p.s. THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT ARTICLE for either the OMSA Jounal (now in colour) or Benders' magazine (By the way, I still haven't received #4: is it still in publication?)
Cheers,
JeMc

[Tim Tezer]

JeMc,

If you can pull it off, this would settle a question that's been open for more than 80 years. That would be something, wouldn't it? I look forward to hearing the result.

Collectors in Turkey seem pretty convinced that the enameled BB&Co. pieces were made outside Turkey - most likely Germany. Oddly enough, one author has attributed the lacquered pieces to the Turkish National Mint, which strikes me as odd. Why use the resouces of the Mint, which was capable of making beautifully enamelled orders, to make such a mediocre product? Anyway, nobody that I know of has found any documentation in Turkey telling who the maker (BB&Co.) was. The Ottomans kept a lot of records, and a contract or bill of sale or something may exist somewhere. Perhaps Fatimah can locate it and make a breakthrough.

Best,
Tim

[Rick Research]

I have and have seen groups where the BB&Co stars were in the possession of enlisted men.

The Turkish "issue" pieces were such appalling garbage (except by current world "awards" standards) that it has always been my surmise that the German forces "in theatre" contracted for their OWN supply to hand out, since these WERE awards that could be initiated and self approved by units down as far as mere companies--hence their lavish over-bestowal upon Germans, BY Germans.

I have a virtually complete bound run of the Bund der Asienkämpfer magazine, from when that proto-organization was alarmed kin handing out flyers, literally, on 1919 street corners asking if anyone had news of entire "missing" units, until the final Nazi ban on semi-independent veterans groups in 1938. In all that time, there was never any advertisement beyond individual shop keepers offering "better quality" stars, with no indication of actual makers.

Because I'd say offhand that 4 out of 5 of these stars are the BB&Co version, it seems clear to me that they were the German "issue" pieces... and that implies local origin, if not in Constantinople then maybe back home in Germany. That seems less likely to me, given the long supply line problems.

Austrian alloy awards were required to be marked during the war with a "*" base metal mark. I show (or showed on the old thread, and can always re-post) a sadly mangled one with that asterisk Austrian wartime mark. I have only seen one other.

Admittedly, I heve never yet even seen an Austrian Turkish front veteran's awards/documents come up for sale, but I don't think we need worry about hunting this ubiquitous maker down except in either Turkey or Germany, both because of the mark (no "*") and peculiar pin, unlike any "European" award.

I've read Liman von Sanders' memoirs (25+ years ago), as well as pieces by Kress von Kressenstein. No mention of ordering 25,000 or so of these to dole out to their own troops. Haven't read Falkenhayn's memoirs (if any), but I've got the Austro-Hungarian "top dog" (Pomiankowski) memoirs... no mention by him either. there are BdAK veteran accounts of late fall 1918 bestowals of paperwork, with no actual stars being on hand. Of course, their forces were then in full rout, so even stopping long enough to jot out the typical late field award documents may have put them in danger of being overrun. These "and I never even got my badge" accounts indicate that normally at least some level of German HQ had some on hand, no Turks involved at all.

[Tim Tezer]

Rick -

This makes perfect sense. Von Sanders certainly would have had authority to confer the award. However, collectors in Turkey have told me that they know of officers' groups - many still in the families of the recipients - that have BB&Co. stars. I have also seen German groups with the lacquered white metal pieces. So it appears that BOTH the Turks and the Germans were issuing both types.

Tim

[Tan Berk]

Admittedly, I heve never yet even seen an Austrian Turkish front veteran's awards/documents come up for sale, but I don't think we need worry about hunting this ubiquitous maker down except in either Turkey or Germany, both because of the mark (no "*") and peculiar pin, unlike any "European" award.

I wish I have met Rick back in the day, I would have showed him my Austrian Turkish front veteran grouping that came with a BB&Co. War Medal.