Carl's ribbon bars

[mott5ranch]

Carl asked me to post these for him. He got these at the Houston Gun Show. I know a few of these but not all. Carl was hoping Rick would set us straight.
I'll let Rick and Carl take it from here.

[eric]

That top one looks pretty neat! Even has a mini Baltenkreuz!

[Rick Research]

I hope Carl can get onto a computer today and describe the BACKS on these. The bottom one is an OK combination, but the top one is bad, the middle one is probably bad, and I'm not happy with what seems like off center devices and "hairy threads" hanging off the bottom one--and devices that seem offcentered.

The Spange on the top bar and the eagles on the middle one look like gray castings.

The middle one might be OK--if not on all brass with the snipped brass catch we have discussed so often. The devices seem to line up well. The 41/42 RCM and Hindenburg Cross are switched there, but I've seen stranger period mismountings. What the last thing--a Saxon Albert Order ribbon with silver swords on it--might be supposed to be, I don't know--perhaps an Ostvolker award.

Top bar has mega problems, aside from somebody pulling off multiple swords (but not--illogically-- the "sexy" swastika eagles, which are what usually got deNazified along the way) to give it that "old and abused" feel. The next to last ribbon is 1920s "German Honor Legion" veterans selfpurchased medal with "combatant" device--and was bannd in 1934 with creation of the Hindenburg Crosses. I can "feel" the sheet brass backing and snipped brass catch on this "too exotic" one.

The Baltic Cross was not a German award and should be at the end with the Hungarian WWI Commemorative Medal. Even, as these sometimes were, mismounted as a "German" Freikorps award, it would always have been AFTER the Hindenburg Cross. No one would have placed it in front. No one. Have never seen a mini device on one.

The 4th ribbon on the top, if the mini is indeed that and not a Wehrmacht 18 years service cross (neither belong on a ribbon bar, maybe on a lapel bow) is supposed to be the Prussian Milita"rehrenzeichen 1st Class. Yes, awarded in bizarre cases in WWI, but way less often than the Gold Military Merit Cross. Of course, a Wehrmacht 18 Years Service Cross hardly belongs on an EK ribbon!!!!!

Flash 'em with a black light Carl!

Some hope for the bottom, dim hope for the middle, no hope for the top! Rick

[Rick Research]

The individual parts are no longer a definitive clue, it is the thing as a whole. Flash with blacklight. Would really like to see those backs, because I cannot imagine how the top bar could have an original metal back plate that long. The awards on it are, simply, not possible like that, as already stated.

Real backings are now being used to make fraudulent Frankenstein bars. Your bottom bar is a "normal" combination, but I am not at all happy--simply from what I see, of an obviously sloppily sewn on backing that shows all the way around the front.

What is in the center of the strange silver cross mini on the top bar? Not that it really matters--that is a parts bar, even if every single piece is "original." It was never assembled or worn under the Third Reich. Its Spange certainly looks like the standard fake horror--will go back in the old pages for the big x500 view of one--left wing stump titleted up out of level.

[Rick Research]

Are there holes in the center of every single space (good), or only behind where devices are (bad!)?

Virtually every original WW2 period bar--not all, which is why The Article is now adding Biblical chapters--should be made out of stamped steel, with the catch punched out of the backing bar, like the good stripped one shown in "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" thread. Ribbon bars changed over the 30 years they were worn, but they were virtually standardized by WW2.

Have you used a blacklight on the ribbons yet? That is simply another test that must be passed. One blue glow, and out they go!

"Parts" bars are still... newly made out of parts... and should never be a price beyond what they are: snippets and repair bits. They should never be the price of unouched originals, which is why I don't like the bottom bar's way way way way too sloppy backing, showing all around the front.

The "combination" may be OK, but the "feel" is still wrong. This is also why the middle bar, representing an officer in his late 40s from the tiny Principality of Hohenzollern, does not "feel" right with an Ostvolk award. The eagles on there, from the scan, appear the same lifeless gray "lump" metal color as the fake Spange on the top bar--compare them very carefully with the one on your "Bad" ribbon bar with all the Austro-Hungarian gewgaws on it.

Gotta see them, feel them, touch them. (No, don't have to taste them, whew! ) Compare them--REALLY compare them, with known Good and Bad ones.

With the flood of fakes, some 20 years old, out there: assume every one is Bad and make it PROVE itself good.

We are right back--as always--to What Do You Want In Your Collection: Maybes? Or Must Bes?

[Chris Boonzaier]

I cant find it at the moment, but I have an award doc for the "11th award" it is one of the many old soldiers association awards that soldiers could apply for after WW1, it was with or without sword and wreath.
It was not allowed to be worn on a regular/official bar.
I even have the complete write up on the qualifications for the award, but as the awardee in this case was a hungerian of´ficer...they sent him Hungerian newsletter with his certificate.

[James Clark]

Chaps,

The 11th ribbon is for the "Verband Nationalgesinnter Soldaten" (Association of Nationally-minded (?) Soldiers) "Deutsche Ehrendenkmuenze des Weltkrieges" (German Honorary Commemorative Medal for World War One). The device signifies a combatant's award. I don't know anything else about it, except that its value suggests it's very common.

If we accept that the last ribbon on the bar of 8 is an Ostvolk award:

a) Was this grade awarded to Germans (I've seen a reference to only the 1st Class awards being given to Germans)?

b) As it is the award for bravery (with swords), rather than merit, shouldn't it rank before the service awards (bearing in mind it is a German award)? Jamie Cross had a bar for sale recently with a "possibly Ostvolk" ribbon on it, and it was way up the order.

Just my observations

James

[James Clark]

I have two bars with these green ribbons on by the way: one is first in a group of seven mainly Austro-Hungarian awards, while the other is the third of four on which a Hindenburg Cross comes last. I have both down as being the Order of Albert with swords(Saxony).

Unfortunately, I can't seem to post images from MSN anymore.