Miniature 57er Medal Bar to a OST Front Panzerman

[Brig]

I've always been a big fan of mini medals, and the Germans certainly produced a lot of variety...especially of the 1957 regs. I have a bunch of miniature stickpins, but thus far have only picked up one set of actual mini medals.

 

These medals are the 1957 deNazified versions of the awards, with this particular set being made by St&L...St&L pieces are often easily identified by a small bump or 'O' on the rear of the badges, not really a hallmark, and not usually center enough to be a possible pin location, so not really sure the purpose of the mark.

 

While the veteran who originally owned this bar wasn't overly decorated, he certainly saw his share of action, being a veteran of the Eastern Front and being wounded enough times to earn the silver grade Wound Badge.

 

These are great little pieces that I am always on the lookout for, but usually have to be acquired from Germany or from other collectors...this stuff doesn't trickle over the the US routinely on its own. By the time these were implemented the war was long over and vets weren't bringing them back as trophies, and it seems most TR collects either ignore or look down on 57ers.

[MECHINF-A15]

Very nice Brig and I've always enjoyed seeing these as well. Note that the PAB is in bronze which leads me to believe the

owner was either a Panzeraufklärer or a Panzergrenadier. IMHO harder to find than a silver PAB.

[Brig]

It seems the mini combos I stumble on are more often Bronze Panzer than silver...not sure if that's an indication to rarity or just my strange luck

[SARGE]

A very neat miniature medal rack Brig. These may be scarce in this form because they are typically worn with ribbons on dinner jackets or mess dress by serving BW members. Many veteran photos I see show active service BW wearing either full size awards or full size 57er racks or more often just the ribbon bars.

 

I find it interesting that they used the miniature ribbons associated with ribbon-ed awards such as the EK, KVK, or Ostmedal but used these generic blue-black ribbons for pin back, or sew on, awards such as the Assault badges and Wound badges. Of course then they had to make the award itself into a drop or a mini for the ribbon bar to tell them apart.

 

Here is a Steinhauer & Luck full size Russian Front 57er showing how well they were made early on. Also, an example of a later St&L ribbon bar showing the similarity of manufacture to US ribbon bars.

 

 

[Proud Kraut]

Great miniature medals and nice variation of the so called "Gefrierfleischorden" ("Frozen Meat Medal").

[Brig]

What's surprising about those later production crimped back ribbons is you rarely ever find them loose...understandably earlier ones aren't loose, as they were backed similar to the mini medals and likely put together on order...but you'd imagine there would have been a stock of the crimped backs pre-fabricated in the shop somewhere. Alas, the most common single ribbon bars are RKs and RKs of the KVK!