Bavarian medal combination, possible?

[Klaus O.]

Dear Imperialoids,

I found this medal bar on ebay (auction has just started). Could this combination be possible... a gefreiter who was awarded of the BMVK 3. mit Kr. u. X und afterwards, maybe during the war promoted to officer? It seems to say the least a bit strange to me ... I have never seen such combination before... with the exception of a replication of Lt. Max Ritter von Müller Grossenordenschnalle depicted on Neal W. O'Connor's book "Aviation Awards of Imperial Germany in WWI", Volume IV, page 227.

Your most appreciated comments?

Ciao,

Claudio

[Klaus O.]

picture of the reverse...

Has somebody else a similiar Bavarian medal bar with a MVO and a MVK to show?

Ciao,

Claudio

[JensF.]

Claudio,
it is not impossible. Maybe he got the MVK 3 as Fahnenjuncker-Unteroffizier in 1914 and the MVO in 1918 as Leutnant.

[Daniel Krause]

Yup,

Jens is right. The MVK3XKr is rank equivalent to Unteroffizier. So a Fahnenjunker fits perfectly.

Best regards

Daniel

[Rick Research]

I agree-- the combination is entirely possible for a young wartime Leutnant.

There are probably far more of these "pairs" than you might suspect, since they are "invisible" in the Rank Lists-- if this officer was in the Reichswehr ONLY his highest MVO4X would be "in print." Weird, but how they did things!

It's a bar!