Memel Medal

[kenneth wolfe]

Hi

I really do not like either of these. Both appear crude, the Austrian seems to be of a unusual metal type and the Memel has for sure been cleaned at some point.


Kenneth

[George Stimson]

Illustrations from Dr. Heinrich Doehle's Die Auszeichnungern des Grossdeutschen Reichs (1943 edition) do little to clarify this situation. The picture of the Memel medal shows a platform that does not reach to the rim.

[George Stimson]

The Czech medal also doesn't make it.

[George Stimson]

But with the Anschluss medal the connection is definitely there. (Granted, these illustrations could very well be artists' conceptions and not photographs, but they at least show that the idea of a Flower Wars medal where the platform reached the rim is not an entirely post-war concoction.)

[jwburchell]

Yes, Kenneth, there clearly are traces indicating that my Memel medal was at some point cleaned by a previous owner. But I am at least glad that this is not a factor in determining whether it is a genuine or a reproduction piece. Aside from the remaining traces of having been cleaned, I thought that mine was a fairly clear stamped piece. Perhaps better photography might help.

In any case, I remain hopeful that evidence of an original Memel with the same plinith detail (reaching the edge) might be presented, perhaps also with the upright "G" that might help in a determination of the authenticity of my medal...although I feel that the ongoing controversy regarding these medals, in general, will not likely be definitively concluded.

Thanks for the pictures, George, which are substantive to the platform/plinith question.

John

[George Stimson]

In the interest of full disclosure and completeness, I checked the wartime medal catalogs of Assmann, Wilhelm Deumer, Otto Schickle, and Steinhauer und Luck, and while all of these companies offered the Flower Wars medals, none of the examples illustrated in their catalogs had platforms that went all the way to the medals' rims.

[Antonio Scapini]

Hi John, the Memel you showed is a post war made from Souval. Some of them are marked on the ring with the famous "L/58". Even all the flowers war medals with the long podium are not original wartime done.