LUDWIG GIES: Horses with Bomb

cacheman

Horses with Bomb, 1915, Cast AE, 54mm broad oval uniface. Private property, one Copy. Designated WVZ123a in Ernsting reference.

Munich School medallist along with Karl Goetz.

Dealer image. I will provide a new one upon it's arrival.

whohah

Forgive my pickiness, but isn't your signature coin a 3 mark? IIRC, 'Drei' is 'Three' in German and 'Funf' is 'Five'.

3 or 5 it's still a beautiful piece!

cosmicdebris

Cool piece.

AuldFartte

Unique? Wow
Beautiful piece

cacheman

Well, unique to the collecting world. I don't read German but in the reference book of Ernsting's the silver example is in museums and private collections with no designation of number; the iron is the same, and this bronze only has "one private example" in it's description. After looking at many examples of his work it appears there are very few available in more than one or two pieces.

wybrit

ttt - quality thread alert.

oldshep

Gotta see your pictures and hear what story you can dig up - is it Goetz? if so, it is unlike any you have shown us so far.
Shep

syraq

<< <i>ttt - quality thread alert. >>

PuddlePirate

Its interesting looking but not something I would personally go out of my way to aquire.

Askari

An interesting and most unusual design! Any history on it?

cacheman

Only in German Mark....

WVZ 123 a
Wie WVZ 123
Bronze, einseitiger Guß
51 : 54mm (unregelmäßig breitoval)
bezeichnet, undatiert

Formal identisch mit WVZ123

Nachweis: Privatbesitz (1 Exemplar)

Pferde mit Bombe

Ebenes Feld mit teilweise erhabener Randeinfassung; Bildmotiv und Schrift plastich erhaben und scharf konturierend gegen den Grund abgehoben. Auf einem kurzen, grasbewachsenen Bodenstück links eine kugelförmige Bombe, aus deren Zückscheuende, sich aufbäumende Pferde. Unterhalb des Bodenstückes links bzw. Rechts L-G bezeichnet.

Hinsichtlich ihrer Entstehungszeit der zweiten Jahreshälfte 1915 zuzuordnende Arbeit

Udo

Material: Bronze, onesided cast
Measure: 51-54mm (unconformable oval)
Marked: L-G (Ludwig Gies) left and right beneath the "land area"
Date: without date, in terms of the date of origin, second half of the year 1915.

One speciman known, in private ownership

Flat fields with partially raised edge. Sharp raised relief of theme and lettering. On the left side of a short grassy area a ball-shaped (exploding) bomb, shying (prancing) horses.

In my opinion, with this work Gies wanted to call attention to the suffering of horses in Worldwar I. Many horses had to die in that war and I suppose so, because there is no human/soldier shown on the medal.

Askari

Thanks for the info, Scott -- and the translation, Udo!!

I agree with you, Udo. The suffering of the horses struck many, many soldiers. It is a subject often raised in memoirs.

cacheman

"One speciman known, in private ownership"

Most excellent!! I had translated it to mean there was only available for private ownership, implying that museums held the others, but owning the only one is way cool!

Askari

Indeed! Surprisingly, there aren't very many one-of-a-kind medals out there. Usually they're issued in at least the low hundreds, occasionally in the dozens. In fact, if you had a "one-and-only", the odds are you'd never likely know it because the odds would be heavily against it ever being cataloged.