Wiederholungsspange

[Wild Card]

Over the years I have seen seemingly endless discussions about genuine and fake 1870 Iron Cross Wiederholungsspange or “repeater bars”. Rather than get into all of good vs fake again, I would like to pose a few different questions regarding them -

1. How were they awarded? Would it have been a situation similar to the awarding/receiving of an Iron Cross where
an actual piece was presented?

2. If so, where did these pieces come from?

3. Or... did the recipient receive some sort of document which authorized them to obtain their own piece?

4. Has anyone ever seen any documents related to the awarding of these bars?

Any information will be appreciated,

Wild Card

[VtwinVince]

I have only seen one of these which I was comfortable with, and never an award document. I suppose this would be the holy grail of EK collecting.

[Don D.]

So many holy grails, so little time. I'm sure 99.9% of the repition bars for the 1870 cross were for noncombattant reasons vice the majority of 1870 EKs which were for combattant reasons.

[gregM]

I have always assumed that these were a private purchase piece.
But that does beg the question--why have we not seen an award
certificate. The document would probably have been issued possibly up
untill the 1920s so one would think that there should be a surviving
example.

[VtwinVince]

Right Greg, there's no way the bureaucratic Germans would award these without some corresponding documentation.

[CSForrester]

There are a lot of facts, published in "Orden & Ehrenzeichen" Nr.5, 7 and 17, the magazin of the german order collectors society BDOS.
The Generalordenskommission send a telegram to the unit of the recepient, the Spange was send by post from the Generalordenskommission.
The unit had to write and seal a Besitzzeugnis, until now only one is know fro the Train-Abteilung 10.
The clasp itself was made by Wagner, Kaiser Wilhelm chosed the awarded design from three different samples Wagner produced for choice. The GOK got the order to by the clasps from Wagner and to distribute them, but no general documents from GOK or even Verleihungsurkunden are known beside the one mentioned above.

Regards
CSForrester

[Roglebk]

Did they come in 2 classes? One for the EKII ribbon that slides over it and one with a hinge and needle for the EKI?

[CSForrester]

They came only in one class, with slide-up reverse and were not awarded if the second and first class 1914 were awarded at the same time. There was a personal order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. that in this case the clasp should not be awarded, the 18702nd class and 1914 1stclass included the award of the 1914 2nd class.

Regards
CSForrester

[Wild Card]

Thank you all for your input. Very informative.

Best wishes,

Wild Card

[Steve P]

Excellent Questions & responses gents! cheers