Austro Hungarian Small Silver Bravery Medal with 2 Bars.

**DUJAILAH** · 10-26-2010, 08:09 PM

Hi Chaps, I couldn't find the old Austro Hungarian medals thread to add this to; but here's my latest. As you can see it's a Small Silver Bravery Medal with 2 Bars "Tapferkeits Medaille" . Apparently it's the equivalent of being awarded the EK1 3 times. There were 384,000 issued during the war. This compares to 280,000 EK1's being issued. This is the first type bearing, on the obverse, the bust of Emperor Franz Joseph I with the text "FRANZ JOSEPH I V.G.G. KAISER V. OESTERREICH" (Franz Joseph I, by the grace of God, Emperor of Austria) and on the reverse, within a laurel wreath with crossed flags at the bottom, the words "DER / TAPFERKEIT" (For Bravery, in German). The 2 silver bars are maker marked "ZIMBLER, WIEN VII". These medals are still very underated to my mind, Cheers, Richard.

**Walkwolf** · 10-27-2010, 02:23 AM

Nice medal.

Do you know what the difference is between
the large and small silver awards ?

**oradour** · 10-27-2010, 03:24 PM

by Walkwolf

Do you know what the difference is between the large and small silver awards ?

Richard, indeed...as I only have a scant knowledge on Austro-Hungarian medals/awards, its a great medal ! love the bars.....
Prost ! Steve.

**DUJAILAH** · 10-27-2010, 06:40 PM

Thanks Walkwolf & Steve, there were 143,000 Large Silvers awarded & apparently it's an equivalent to the British MM. It's difficult to judge the criteria for which it was awarded as each nation applied different systems for awarding bravery medals, Cheers, Richard.

P.S.: - I've found that Austro Hungarian 1914/18 medals are an interesting area to collect & they are still relatively cheap!!!

**Walkwolf** · 10-27-2010, 11:08 PM

I agree, never been that much interest in them.

There are several different reverses, not only for bravery.
I have a 'Fortitudini' version in bronze.

**DUJAILAH** · 10-28-2010, 01:37 PM

Hi Chaps, some interesting links : -

The Austrian Golden, Silver and Bronze Bravery Medals 1914-1918

Austro-Hungarian orders and Decorations 1914-1918

Cheers,

Richard.

**Chopperman** · 10-29-2010, 02:37 AM

Very interesting medal Richard. I have never seen the "bars" before.
I'm not much into A-H medals mainly because so many of them tend to all look the
same. However some of the higher grades of the F J medals are very nice looking.

**DUJAILAH** · 10-29-2010, 08:54 AM

Hi Greg, they really are worth a look. You're right about the F.J. Medals & in general K.u.K. medals vary from brilliant quality to the poor (as with the kriegsmetal items), Cheers, Richard.

**DUJAILAH** · 08-01-2013, 11:27 PM

Hi Chaps, I've been buying a few more KuK medals recently & thought I'd add this example to this old thread.

As you can see it's a very poor example of the Small Silver Bravery medal. This example has no silver in it what so ever!! The medal is made in, late war, 'kreigsmetal', probably zinc & has been lacquered. I presume it was silver when first made & wouldn't have looked grey. The second award bar is plated steel & starting to rust in a couple of spots.

The reason for the production of these low grade examples is two fold. Firstly, late in the war with the economy on it's knees the Austro-Hungarian govt was trying to cut costs. Secondly, many officers wore low grade examples 'in the field' & kept their higher quality medals for parades etc.

Cheers,

Richard.

**Miro** · 08-02-2013, 08:03 AM

A-H braveries are very nice and still cheap to collect, you just have to differ between official award pieces and postwar copies, which are mostly of pure quality. Official award medals have either so called henkelose, or barrell suspension, are from solid materials (gold, silver, bronze) and always marked under the shoulder for sculptor (LEISEK for big F.J. braveries, TAUTENHAYN for small F.J. braveries and KAUTSCH for Karl medals).
Postwar copies are from crap materials (zinc and other alloys), portrait of F.J. or Karl is sometimes quite funny and are mostly unmarked, or marked for other sculptors than mentioned above (for example GÁL). Fortunately, the thread starter is official award type with barrel suspension and beautiful repetition clasp.
FORTITUDINI on Karl medals means the same as TAPFERKEIT on F.J. medals. Karl just wanted to be more politicaly correct to Hungarians and other nations in A-H, so he used neutral Latin in the place of German.
Best, Miro

PS: Which idiot has programmed the machine to replace the abbreviation F.J. without dots with the word "Fallschirmjäger"?