IMO, if it is white and glows electric blue under UV, it is postwar. To answer Ed's question, I know w/ British medals it is common, and even desirable to replace old or worn ribbons w/ modern ones, even in a mounted grouping. Most German militaria collectors would never dream of doing this. Neither approach is right or wrong, just a different aesthetic. Kind of like w/ antique silver. On a silver tea set, it would be perfectly acceptable to shine it up w/ polish. A dark, oxidized 835 silver Honor Goblet...you would be drawn and quartered by some collectors for even thinking of cleaning it. Just a different viewpoint. This is one of the things that fascinates me about collecting in general. There are different sets of do's and don'ts for each area. It is perfectly fine to clean, and even restore a painting, but do that to a German helmet (for example) and it is considered "messed with" and much less desirable.
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Mabye it has to do with the following.
1) most British medals are named, if they are mounted on a bar you can mostly see they should be there, simply by reading the names. With these German fantasy bars you see your only recourse is the way they are mounted and the ribbon they are on.
So... with german bars the ribbon is an indicator of originality, with the british bar it is not really.
2) The thousand year reich...wasnt. The British empire wasnt either, but it WAS longer than 12 years... and the medals have probably been mounted, remounted and remounted again. When i was in the army I wore my full medal bar on very, very few occasions, WW2 German soldiers would have been in the same boat.
Victorian soldiers had them on all the time, and as a result ... which was the original ribbon? The one he had when awarded the medal? The last on that was on when he pawned the medal? the 10-20 ribbons he may have had on inbetween?
Then there is the question of quality. With luck you can still get wonderful period silky ribbon for Victorian medlas (and WW1 etc) and I much prefer to get these. The modern stuff is terrible indeed, and I try and avoid it, but it is better than none. (and I will bet that a soldier would never notice the difference... but a collector would
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