Orders, Decorations and Medals

A fine Saxon Franco-Prussian War group of seven awarded to Captain P. Heine, Royal Saxon Life Grenadier Regiment No.100

Saxony, Order of St. Henry, Medal, 1849-1918 type, by Friedrich Ulbricht, silver; Landwehr L.S. Cross, 1st Class, for 20 years, silver and gold; Prussia, War Medal 1870-71, 4 clasps, Gravelotte-St. Privat, Beaumont, Sedan, Paris; Centenary Medal 1897; Saxon Duchies, Ernestine House Order, 2nd type, Knight’s 2nd Class breast badge with swords, silver, gold and enamel, slight enamel damage; G.B., Order of the League of Mercy Badge, silver-gilt and enamel, mounted German style as worn; medals contained in an old and damaged case inscribed, ‘Peter Heine, Hauptman der Landwehr’; Turkey, Order of Osmania, 2nd Class breast star, 82mm., silver, silver-gilt and enamel, Turkish stamp mark on pin, slight enamel damage; together with a Saxon Landwehr helmet plate, very fine and better (8) £1000-1200

Research with the lot indicates that in the Saxon Army List of 1908 and 1912, Peter Heine is recorded as a retired Captain in the Landwehr, living in London. That his last place of duty was in Landwehr District No.2, Leipzig and that he retired from the Army on 22 June 1890. It also confirms the first, second, third and fifth medals plus the Turkish Order of Medjidie, 3rd Class. He was automatically entitled to the Centenary Medal as a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War in which he probably served in XII Saxon Corps. He was awarded the League of Mercy Badge in 1909, the entry on the roll reading, ‘Marlborough House, 7th July, 1909. Peter Heine, Captain, Member. Westminster’.

Sold with a photograph of the recipient in uniform, wearing the first five medals and a Turkish Order of Medjidie, 3rd Class neck badge. On the reverse is a paper label reading, ‘Written on reverse of the original (in English):- “To Major the Hon. A. Russell as a reminiscence of a very pleasant meeting between “‘two Grenadiers”’ on 29th October 1908. Peter Heine, Capt. late Royal Saxon Life Grenadier Regt. No.100” (Original in collection of A. F. Flatow, Surbiton)’. Also with a short article on the group in the Journal of the Orders and Medals Research Society, by A. F. Flatow.