1929 Graf Zeppelin Round the World, Meissen Medal. Beaded Rim in Caramel Brown Bisque Porcelain with Gold Edge

From a small collection of most rare Meissen porcelain medals of the Graf Zeppelin round the world flight. three different variations of the same medal. Perfect for either early aviation and airship collectors, rare medal collectors, or collectors of finest German porcelain from the Weimar period

1929 GERMANY. 1929 Graf Zeppelin World Flight Medal. Red Porcelain, 50.7mm. Mint condition.
Obv. Airship over Eastern
Hemisphere globe, GRAF ZEPPELIN WELT
RUNDFLUG . Rev. Airship over Western Hemisphere globe, FRIEDRICHSHAFEN. TOKIO. LOS ANGELES. LAKEHURST . A classic Zeppelin
issue made by the State Porcelain Factory of Meissen, mintmark crossed swords, Kurschwertern . MEISSEN TABLE MEDAL - GRAF ZEPPELIN "AROUND THE WORLD VOYAGE" - 1929. Meissen was one of the premier makers of tableware and porcelain items in Imperial Germany. The firm is hundreds of years old, and has survived to this day. A large-format table medal that salutes the Graf Zeppelin?s (LZ-127) "Around the World Tour." The tour began in Friedrichshafen, Germany, where the Graf Zeppelin was built, and continued on to Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Lakehurst, NJ (where her sister ship, the Hindenburg, exploded in May 1937) before returning to Germany. It measures 2" in diameter and is chocolate brown. It shows hallmarking for Meissen on both sides.In 1929, the Graf Zeppelin, LZ-127, made a world flight, stopping at Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. Although the Graf was not the first aircraft to circle the globe, it took only 21 days, 7 hours, 34 minutes, a new record for round-the-world travel by any means. Furthermore, it carried a full passenger load over much previously uncharted land.

With its extraordinary fineness and silky matt surface, bisque porcelain exudes an unmistakable charm. Sculptural qualities, modelling skills and decorations such as reliefs are shown to full effect and are further accentuated by the material’s fascinating tactile quality. Developed in the 18th century by the French painter Jean-Jacques, the fine material rose to prominence as a substitute for ivory, alabaster and marble in the manufacture of the Château Vincennes. To this day, bisque porcelain is often compared to marble because of its unique way of diffusing light rather than reflecting it. At MEISSEN, this effect and material quality is achieved by polishing the unglazed surface of fired porcelain pieces in painstaking detail, resulting in the bisque's characteristic velvety soft surfaces.
Porcelain in its purest form. Contrary to popular belief, bisque porcelain has the same properties as its glazed counterparts in terms of density, hardness, strength and resistance. By omitting the glaze, details, such as sculptural swerves, elaborate embossing work and decorations, such as reliefs, are highlighted and given a unique tactile quality, showing off the skills of Meissen artisans in a particularly compelling way.  read more

Code: 25122

1929 Graf Zeppelin Round the World, White Bisque Porcelain Meissen Medal 1929

From a small collection of most rare Meissen porcelain medals of the Graf Zeppelin round the world flight. three different variations of the same medal. Perfect for either early aviation and airship collectors, rare medal collectors, or collectors of finest German porcelain from the Weimar period

This rare medal was made by the famous Meissen factory in Germany to commemorate the first circumnavigation of the world by an airship, the ‘Graf Zeppelin’ in August 1929. Designed by Ludwig Durr but conceived and operated by Dr Hugo Eckener, Chairman of the German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, the rigid airship was built at their works at Friedrichshafen between 1926 and 1928 and was intended to demonstrate the viability of intercontinental commercial air travel. It was the largest airship in the world at that time.

Co-sponsored by the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the round the world flight took off from Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, on 8 August heading east with Eckener in command. As well as the crew there were 20 passengers on board and four Hearst staff including the Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins, a cameraman and a British reporter, Lady Grace Drummond-Hay, who became the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air. Having refuelled at Friedrichshafen the flight continued across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Tokyo, then on to California, landing at Los Angeles to complete the first ever nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean. The final leg from Los Angeles to Lakehurst ended on 29 August, three weeks after the airship had departed. Actual flying time was 12 days, 12 hours, and 13 minutes, the fastest circumnavigation of the globe at the time.

The company then used the airship on its transatlantic service and for 5 years provided a commercial passenger and mail service between Germany and Brazil. ‘Graf Zeppelin’ made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres and was the first aircraft to fly over a million miles. It flew a total of 17,177 hours (nearly two years), without injuring a passenger or crewman. It was operated by a crew of 36, and could carry 24 passengers, who were treated to 3 hot meals a day with fine wines in the dining room and entertainment on board. The operational spaces, common areas, and passenger sleeping cabins were built into a gondola structure beneath the airframe.

Eckener had been outspoken in his dislike of the Nazi Party so that when they took power in 1933 he was replaced by his former colleague Lehmann and the ‘Graf Zeppelin’ was commandeered for a new airline. The Nazis used the airship as a propaganda tool until it was withdrawn from service after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. The airship was scrapped and the metal airframes melted down for military aircraft production in 1940 - a dismal end for the most successful airship of all time, about which Lady Drummond-Hay had written:

“The Graf Zeppelin is a ship with a soul. You have only to fly in it to know that it's a living, vibrant, sensitive and magnificent thing”

With its extraordinary fineness and silky matt surface, bisque porcelain exudes an unmistakable charm. Sculptural qualities, modelling skills and decorations such as reliefs are shown to full effect and are further accentuated by the material’s fascinating tactile quality. Developed in the 18th century by the French painter Jean-Jacques, the fine material rose to prominence as a substitute for ivory, alabaster and marble in the manufacture of the Château Vincennes. To this day, bisque porcelain is often compared to marble because of its unique way of diffusing light rather than reflecting it. At MEISSEN, this effect and material quality is achieved by polishing the unglazed surface of fired porcelain pieces in painstaking detail, resulting in the bisque's characteristic velvety soft surfaces.
Porcelain in its purest form. Contrary to popular belief, bisque porcelain has the same properties as its glazed counterparts in terms of density, hardness, strength and resistance. By omitting the glaze, details, such as sculptural swerves, elaborate embossing work and decorations, such as reliefs, are highlighted and given a unique tactile quality, showing off the skills of Meissen artisans in a particularly compelling way  read more

Code: 25121

1929 Graf Zeppelin Round the World, White Bisque Porcelain Meissen Medal 1929. Flat Rimmed, with Silvered Zeppellin

From a small collection of most rare Meissen porcelain medals of the Graf Zeppelin round the world flight. three different variations of the same medal. Perfect for either early aviation and airship collectors, rare medal collectors, or collectors of finest German porcelain from the Weimar period.

The photos show the medal as somewhat grey porcelain, because, although it is brilliant white in reality, we have to darken it in the gallery in order to photograph its detail. See photo 6 in the gallery showing its more accurate whiteness, but no detail can be seen.

This rare medal was made by the famous Meissen factory in Germany to commemorate the first circumnavigation of the world by an airship, the ‘Graf Zeppelin’ in August 1929. Designed by Ludwig Durr but conceived and operated by Dr Hugo Eckener, Chairman of the German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, the rigid airship was built at their works at Friedrichshafen between 1926 and 1928 and was intended to demonstrate the viability of intercontinental commercial air travel. It was the largest airship in the world at that time.

Co-sponsored by the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the round the world flight took off from Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, on 8 August heading east with Eckener in command. As well as the crew there were 20 passengers on board and four Hearst staff including the Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins, a cameraman and a British reporter, Lady Grace Drummond-Hay, who became the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air. Having refuelled at Friedrichshafen the flight continued across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Tokyo, then on to California, landing at Los Angeles to complete the first ever nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean. The final leg from Los Angeles to Lakehurst ended on 29 August, three weeks after the airship had departed. Actual flying time was 12 days, 12 hours, and 13 minutes, the fastest circumnavigation of the globe at the time.

The company then used the airship on its transatlantic service and for 5 years provided a commercial passenger and mail service between Germany and Brazil. ‘Graf Zeppelin’ made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres and was the first aircraft to fly over a million miles. It flew a total of 17,177 hours (nearly two years), without injuring a passenger or crewman. It was operated by a crew of 36, and could carry 24 passengers, who were treated to 3 hot meals a day with fine wines in the dining room and entertainment on board. The operational spaces, common areas, and passenger sleeping cabins were built into a gondola structure beneath the airframe.

Eckener had been outspoken in his dislike of the Nazi Party so that when they took power in 1933 he was replaced by his former colleague Lehmann and the ‘Graf Zeppelin’ was commandeered for a new airline. The Nazis used the airship as a propaganda tool until it was withdrawn from service after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. The airship was scrapped and the metal airframes melted down for military aircraft production in 1940 - a dismal end for the most successful airship of all time, about which Lady Drummond-Hay had written:

“The Graf Zeppelin is a ship with a soul. You have only to fly in it to know that it's a living, vibrant, sensitive and magnificent thing”

With its extraordinary fineness and silky matt surface, bisque porcelain exudes an unmistakable charm. Sculptural qualities, modelling skills and decorations such as reliefs are shown to full effect and are further accentuated by the material’s fascinating tactile quality. Developed in the 18th century by the French painter Jean-Jacques, the fine material rose to prominence as a substitute for ivory, alabaster and marble in the manufacture of the Château Vincennes. To this day, bisque porcelain is often compared to marble because of its unique way of diffusing light rather than reflecting it. At MEISSEN, this effect and material quality is achieved by polishing the unglazed surface of fired porcelain pieces in painstaking detail, resulting in the bisque's characteristic velvety soft surfaces.

Porcelain in its purest form. Contrary to popular belief, bisque porcelain has the same properties as its glazed counterparts in terms of density, hardness, strength and resistance. By omitting the glaze, details, such as sculptural swerves, elaborate embossing work and decorations, such as reliefs, are highlighted and given a unique tactile quality, showing off the skills of Meissen artisans in a particularly compelling way.  read more

Code: 25120

An Edo Period Iron Mokko Form Tsuba Engraved with Geometric Manji Design

The tsuba, is a fundamental element in the mounting of the Japanese sword, it is the guard, the most important element of the fittings, and has two main functions: the first to protect the hand against the slashes and lunges of an opposing sword; the second is to prevent that the hand ends up directly on the cutting edge of the blade. Over the course of more than ten centuries of history, the tsuba has undergone a number of important changes, as regards the materials used for its manufacture and its appearance.

During the centuries of wars that characterised Japan until the advent of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the first half of the 17th century, the tsuba was essentially made of iron or steel. From the mid-17th century onwards the tsuba became a real work of art, with the use of soft metals used in various ways, with engravings, incrustations; well made tsuba were the pride of hundreds of craftsmen’s schools whose value sometimes exceeded that of the same blades of the mounting where tsuba was part of.
72 mm. height  read more

Code: 25117

A Very Good British WW1, 1915, .455 MKVI Revolver Holster. An Absolute Corker!

The standard-issue Webley revolver at the outbreak of the First World War was the Webley Mk V (adopted 9 December 1913, but there were considerably more Mk IV revolvers in service in 1914, as the initial order for 20,000 Mk V revolvers had not been completed when hostilities began. On 24 May 1915, the large calibre Webley Mk VI .455 {manstopper} was adopted as the standard sidearm for British and Commonwealth troops and remained so for the duration of the First World War, being issued to officers, airmen, naval crews, boarding parties, trench raiders, machine-gun teams, and tank crews. The Mk VI proved to be a very reliable and hardy weapon, well suited to the mud and adverse conditions of trench warfare, and several accessories were developed for the Mk VI, including a bayonet (made from a converted French Gras bayonet), speedloader devices (the "Prideaux Device" and the Watson design), and a stock allowing for the revolver to be converted into a carbine.

Demand exceeded production, which was already behind as the war began. This forced the British government to buy substitute weapons chambered in .455 Webley from neutral countries. America provided the Smith & Wesson 2nd Model "Hand Ejector" and Colt New Service Revolvers.  read more

Code: 21348

Gestalten Der Weltgeshichte Miniaturen. Shaping World History. Contemporary Miniatures of Famous Personalities from Four Centuries (Third Reich Publication1933)

A superb 1930's German album-book perfect for the collector of antique miniatures and famed personalities of history

Wiemann, Hermann (Text)

Gestalten der Weltgeschichte . Zeitgenössische Miniaturen berühmter Persönlichkeiten aus vier Jahrhunderten (1933)

Contemporary miniatures of famous personalities from four centuries, paperback with gold embossing, A4, Cigarettn-Bilderdienst, 1933, 111 pages, really good condition for its age,

Cardboard cover with gold embossing, 111 pages, approx. 31 x 23.5 cm, Humanism and Reformation in Germany / The Renaissance in Italy / England under the Tudors / The Renaissance in France / Spain and the Netherlands / Thirty Years' War / Absolutism in Prussia and Saxony / Absolutism in France / England under the Stuarts and the Revolution / England in the 18th century / France under Louis XV / Austria in the 18th century / Frederick the Great and his time / Russia / the time of Goethe / Louis XVI. and the French Revolution / Napoleon I and his time / Germany in the war of liberation / German Romanticism / The 19th century Shapes of world history Contemporary miniatures of famous personalities from four centuries Published by Cigaretten-Bilderdienst, Hamburg-Bahrenfeld, 1933 151.-180.  read more

Code: 24617

A Koto Period O-Sukashi Katana Tsuba

Circa 1550. Tsuba were made by whole dynasties of craftsmen whose only craft was making tsuba. They were usually lavishly decorated. In addition to being collectors items, they were often used as heirlooms, passed from one generation to the next. Japanese families with samurai roots sometimes have their family crest (mon) crafted onto a tsuba. Tsuba can be found in a variety of metals and alloys, including iron, steel, brass, copper and shakudo. In a duel, two participants may lock their katana together at the point of the tsuba and push, trying to gain a better position from which to strike the other down. This is known as tsubazeriai pushing tsuba against each other.  read more

Code: 20314

We Have New Fascinating Items Added To The Site Every Single Day.

Wonderful and intriguing pieces, such as a Renaissance period helmet and fusetto stiletto dagger, as used by a chief Cannoneer of the Papal Army in the 16th century, up to 500 years ago, commanded by Cesare Borgia, son of the Borgia Pope, and later in the 16th century, By Matteo Barbarini, brother to Pope Urban VIIIth.

Also, many military souvenirs of all kinds from WW1 and WW2, to, say, a Spanish Conquistador's helmet of the 16th century, to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, 1960's Ist Edition books, a Baker Rifle sword-bayonet, to original samurai swords hundreds of years old.

All are original, beautiful, historical and truly intriguing pieces.

This week we will be adding some superb and inexpensive Roman and Greek antiquities, plus medieval antiquities too. We are also sending our deliveries to our clients in the UK, Australia, America, & Canada, every working day, containing the rarest and finest pieces, from books, to helmets, swords and antiquities.  read more

Code: 21779

An Original, WW1, German Kaiserliche Marine Vickers-Maxim I Pounder Pom Pom Shell

Imperial Kaiserliche Marine Stamped. A superb fuzed shell head fully stamped and marked. With a 37mm calibre the water-cooled, belt-fed Maxim-Nordenfeldt (among others, with variants produced as Vickers-Maxim and Hotchkiss-Maxim) was the smallest item of artillery used during that war and boasted a firing rate of 60 rounds per minute, utilising a belt of 25 one-pound shells, each shell covering a distance ranging up to 3,000 yards. In World War I, it was used as an early anti-aircraft gun in the home defence of Britain. It was adapted as the Mk I*** and Mk II on high-angle pedestal mountings and deployed along London docks and on rooftops on key buildings in London, others on mobile motor lorries at key towns in the East and Southeast of England. 25 were employed in August 1914, and 50 in February 1916. A Mk II gun (now in the Imperial War Museum, London) on a Naval pedestal mounting was the first to open fire in defence of London during the war. However, the small shell was insufficient to damage the German Zeppelin airships sufficiently to bring them down. The Ministry of Munitions noted in 1922: "The pom-poms were of very little value. There was no shrapnel available for them, and the shell provided for them would not burst on aeroplane fabric but fell back to earth as solid projectiles were of no use except at a much lower elevation than a Zeppelin attacking London was likely to keep"

Nevertheless, Lieutenant O.F.J. Hogg of No. 2 AA Section in III Corps was the first anti-aircraft gunner to shoot down an aircraft, with 75 rounds on 23 September 1914 in France.

The gun was experimentally mounted on aircraft as the lighter 1-pounder Mk III, the cancelled Vickers E.F.B.7 having been specifically designed to carry it in its nose.
Hiram Maxim originally designed the Pom-Pom in the late 1880s as an enlarged version of the Maxim machine gun. Its longer range necessitated exploding projectiles to judge range, which in turn dictated a shell weight of at least 400 grams (0.88 lb), as that was the lightest exploding shell allowed under the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868 and reaffirmed in the Hague Convention of 1899. Dated 1905. Not suitable for export, empty inert and safe.  read more

Code: 20782

A Very Rare, Original, 1913, Silver Medal Of The Crash of Imperial German Naval Airship L2 in Johannisthal

Silver medal 1913. (Lauer) On the crash of the naval airship L 2 in Johannisthal. Icarus lying on the ground, phoenix rising above it burning, falling airship. Hallmark: silver 990, 33.3 mm, 17.5 g. Coll. Joos a. 293 Kaiser 397. Very rare. Matted, small scratches, extremely fine The Johannisthal air disaster was one of the first multiple-fatality air disasters in history. It involved the Imperial German Navy's L 2 airship manufactured by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin as LZ 18. Its test flight resulted in the death of all 28 passengers and crew on board. On 17 October 1913, at approximately 10:30am local time, hydrogen gas which was being vented was sucked into the forward engine and ignited causing the airship to explode and burn. It crashed near Johannisthal Air Field about 10 miles southeast of Berlin. This accident occurred a little over a month after the Helgoland Island Air Disaster.The "Almanac and Year-Book for 1914" reported that the airship "was destroyed by the explosion of a gasoline tank, which occurred as the ship was making a trial trip above the city of Johannisthal, near Berlin. All except one of the twenty-seven military men on board, including the entire admiralty trial board, were killed.

Thousands, who had been watching the evolutions of the L-2, which, if accepted, was to have been the flagship of Germany's new aerial fleet, heard a heavy detonation and saw the craft suddenly become enveloped in flames and drop to the ground from a height of 900 feet.

On reaching the spot in the highway where the airship fell the spectators found nothing but a mass of crumpled aluminium and twisted wreckage. The only man found alive was Lieut. Baron von Bieul, a guest on the trip, who was fatally injured. The passengers of the centre gondola were blown through the sides of the car by the explosion and their bodies fell a quarter of a mile away from the wreck of the dirigible.

The pilot of the airship was Capt. Gluth, who had been in Count Zeppelin's employ for a long time.

The admiralty trial board consisted of seven officers, including Lieutenant-Commander Behnish, and Lieut. Freyer, both personal friends of Emperor William, Naval Constructors Neumann and Pietzler, Naval Engineer Busch, Lieut. Trenk and Chief Engineer Haussmann were among the others killed."  read more

Code: 23640