Eight Place Medal Bar

Product Description: A beautiful Eight Place Medal Bar featuring both Imperial and Third Reich Orders and Awards. The Eight Place Medal Bar consists of an Imperial Iron Cross Second Class, a Third Reich War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords, a Saxon Albrecht Order in Gold 1st Class, a World War 1 Commemorative “Hindenburg” Cross, an World War 1 Austrian Commemorative Medal with Swords, a Third Reich Heer Four Year Faithful Service, a Third Reich Era 25 Year Faithful Service Award, and finally an Austro-Hungarian 1st World War Commemorative Medal.  The iron cross shows slight bubbling to the core, with a few small areas of patina to the edges of the frame. The War Merit 2nd Class is a tombak example in near mint condition. The Albrecht Order is interestingly mounted to a “West Wall” ribbon, and not the correct ribbon for this award. It is nicely enameled with nearly all the original gilding remaining. The “Hindenburg” Cross is made of tombak (brass), is in near mint condition, and nicely maker marked. The Austrian War Commemorative Medal is made of tombak and retains nearly all of its original gold finish. The 4 Year Heer Long Service award is made of tombak, and retains nearly all of its silver electroplating. The 25 year Faithful Service Medal shows areas of patina build up in the recesses, but remains mostly in excellent condition. The Austro-Hungarian Commemorative Medal is made of zinc, and retain nearly all of its original protective lacquering. The bar is nicely mounted to a steel stiffener. It should be noted that a repair, using white hand stitched threads, can be seen on the reverse of the bar on the right hand side.  Regardless of this repair, this Eight Place Medal Bar would make a nice addition to a collection.

Historical Description: The German Military had a long tradition of issuing awards for achievements ranging from long service and participation in specific campaigns, to battlefield valor. Some types of awards were to be pinned on the uniform, others were medals that were suspended from ribbons. On the field uniform, only the ribbons for these medals were to be worn. But for dress uniforms used for parade and walking-out purposes, soldiers wore all of their medals in the form of medal bars that would be pinned to the uniform, on the soldier’s chest. Each medal bar was individually custom made by a tailor or a manufacturer of insignia. They were not issue items, they had to be purchased. These ranged from single mounted awards, to long racks of medals indicating a distinguished career of many years, sometimes with medals from both World Wars or even earlier awards of Imperial Germany. German medal bars were also worn on dress uniforms of civil, political, and paramilitary organizations.

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