25 Year General Service Long Service Award

Product Description: This 25 Year General Service Long Service Award is a nice, representative example of this impressive and relatively scarce civil service decoration. It is made of gilded brass. The original factory applied gold finish is eye-catching and completely intact, and is beautiful, with brightly polished highlights that contrast nicely with the matte finish in the recesses. The central swastika emblem is painted black. This piece shows only light wear, with scattered small marks, and no major damage to note. All of the original detail is intact. The soldered eyelet at the top of the upper arm on this cross retains the original split style suspension ring. There is no manufacturer marking. The ribbon is missing. This 25 Year General Service Long Service Award is sound, and displays very well.

Historical Description: Prior to WWII, the German military and civil authorities instituted a wide range of Long Service Awards to reward personnel for years of service. These awards were used by all branches of the German military, as well as civil and political organizations such as the police, the customs service, and the National Labor Service (RAD). There was also a general Long Service Award for civil service. Each of these awards was issued in the form of a medal that was suspended from a cornflower blue ribbon. Many of these were made in different grades denoting a specific number of years of service. They were worn on the uniform in the form of ribbon or medal bars, and up to two long service awards could be worn at the same time. In most cases, a device affixed to the ribbon bar would denote for which service the award had been issued; sometimes the medals themselves had devices on the ribbons, either in the form of pinned-on metal emblems, or else hand or machine embroidery applied directly to the ribbon. Some German Long Service Awards were very widely awarded, others were made and issued only in small numbers.

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