Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The mounted group of sixteen miniature dress medals worn by Herr F. J. Günther, General Director of the Anatolian Railway Company

Germany, Prussia, Iron Cross 1914; Order of the Crown, Civil Division, Third Class Badge, gold and enamel; Red Cross Medal, some minor corrosion; Oldenburg, Friedrich August Cross; Austria, Empire, Order of Franz Joseph, Commander’s Star, with War Decoration wreath, silver, silver-gilt, and enamel; Order of Franz Joseph, Commander’s Badge, silver-gilt and enamel, green enamel damage to tassels from crown; Bulgaria, Kingdom, Order of National Merit, Civil Division, First Class Badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Bulgarian Red Cross Society Honour Badge, 1st type, silver-gilt and enamel; Ottoman Empire, Order of the Medjidieh, First Class Star, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel; Order of the Medjidieh, First Class Badge, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel; Order of Osmania, Second Class Star, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel; Order of Osmania, Second Class Badge, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel; Persia, Empire, Order of the Lion and the Sun, Second Class Badge, silver and enamel, embellished with ‘diamonds’ and ‘emeralds’, one diamond missing; Russia, Bokhara, Order of the Noble Bokhara, First Class Third Degree Star, silver-gilt and enamel; Persia, Empire, Medal of the Scimitar of Ali, gold and enamel; Ottoman Empire, Navy Fund Medal, gold, mounted as worn continental style from a double braided gilt chain, with G. A. Scharffenberg, Dresden, mounting button at one end and hook at other, one miniature, presumably the miniature of the Russian Order of St. Stanislaus, missing; otherwise except where stated about extremely fine, rare (16) £600-£800

Franz Johannes Günther was born in 1861, and served as General Director of the Anatolian Railway Company, the company funded by Deutsche bank and tasked with the construction of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway which, when ultimately linked to the port of Basra, would have enabled Germany to transport goods and oil across land from the Indian Ocean, thus bypassing the Anglo-French controlled Suez Canal. He died in 1937.

For the recipient’s full sized awards, see lots 1245, 1251, 1274, 1316, 1317, 1319, 1321, 1330, and 1331.