Best "stories" told by parts bars..

[landsknechte]

After spending some time on eBay this morning, and finding some rather implausable (the nicest term I could think of off the top of my head)...



...I've got to ask - what are some of the more best "life stories" that you've seen told by questionable ribbon bars? (You know, all of the female Boxer rebellion vets that went on to spend eighty years in the army..)

--Chris

[Rick Research]

Like the WW-ONE non-combatant General with under 12 years of military service who was called back up for the Russian Front winter of 1941/2?

Or those WW1 Gefreiters with MORE awards (frontline AND rear service!) than Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen?

[James Clark]

I can't see anything immediately wrong about the arrangements on any of the bars shown here apart from the 15 years party service without the 10 years (on which the the KVK should also come before the 1914-18 Cross). Even the first one, though highly unlikely to be authentic I suppose, could be an Eastern Volunteer who served on the Western Front after D-Day, of which there were many (bronze wasn't a prerequisite for silver or gold in the Ostvolk series, was it?). Or am I just tired?

Top "bad story" still has to be that combat group that had a mothers cross stuck on the end mounted on a Baltic Cross ribbon, although I think there have been a fair few where the recipient would have needed to have served in every campaign since 1870 and been freely promoted up and down the ranks.

[landsknechte]

The Kyffhauserbund and Hindenburg Cross co-existing on the same bar is a big no-no, as far as I am aware..

--Chris

P.S.
On another auction, the seller had a "grand slam" 25, 15, 10 year NSDAP series on one of his ribbon bars. No devices on any of them, or holes where the devices had been. Didn't inspire a whole ton of confidence.

[McCulloh]

The Kyffhauserbund and Hindenburg Cross co-existing on the same bar is a big no-no, as far as I am aware..

--Chris

P.S.
On another auction, the seller had a "grand slam" 25, 15, 10 year NSDAP series on one of his ribbon bars. No devices on any of them, or holes where the devices had been. Didn't inspire a whole ton of confidence.

The Kyfyserbund ribbon and the HK isn't that big a no-no. There was a period of @18 months where both were officially sanctioned. I have about a dozen snaps from 1935-36 where both were worn and some veterans continued to wear eccentric combinations all the way to '45.
There is however NO way that a party vet would have worn a 15 without a 10. It was too big a status symbol-and refelected real tangible socio-political power.