1880s military trio
- Thread starter merrill
- Start date
I guess I'm wondering about the purpose of this kind of picture -- why -- what occasion? The guy on the left might be my great-grandfather. I know nothing about Prussian military and hope this forum can tell me what type of duty he may have had, where he served etc.
Also, how could you tell the regiment from the photo? Sorry if that's a dumb question, but like I said, I know nothing.
Also, how could you tell the regiment from the photo? Sorry if that's a dumb question, but like I said, I know nothing.
joerookery
Well-known member
There are no dumb questions only dumb realities like why Maggie and Janet put up with Gus and I.
That picture is a typical reservist picture. These were purchased by the individual soldier as a souvenir of their service time. They were typically purchased at the end of the service commitment. Mike determined the unit by the uniform that the individual was wearing. Typically these three people are the same guy. What they did literally was to glue a cutout picture of the face from some photograph onto this background. So the backgrounds were mass-produced and then they were personalized by gluing a picture.
Typically the bottom of the picture would have a whitespace with the individual's name, unit, timeframe and maybe something else would be printed. This appears to be from somewhere earlier in Imperial Germany where Wilhelm the first was still the Emperor. So somewhere between 1871 and 1887. These souvenirs were sold throughout the empire but lost ground eventually to more flashy souvenirs such as beer steins, pipes and other items. There is a discussion of these in the Handbook of Imperial Germany page 160 -- 164.
That picture is a typical reservist picture. These were purchased by the individual soldier as a souvenir of their service time. They were typically purchased at the end of the service commitment. Mike determined the unit by the uniform that the individual was wearing. Typically these three people are the same guy. What they did literally was to glue a cutout picture of the face from some photograph onto this background. So the backgrounds were mass-produced and then they were personalized by gluing a picture.
Typically the bottom of the picture would have a whitespace with the individual's name, unit, timeframe and maybe something else would be printed. This appears to be from somewhere earlier in Imperial Germany where Wilhelm the first was still the Emperor. So somewhere between 1871 and 1887. These souvenirs were sold throughout the empire but lost ground eventually to more flashy souvenirs such as beer steins, pipes and other items. There is a discussion of these in the Handbook of Imperial Germany page 160 -- 164.
Liongules
New member
merrill said:
Merrill,
I determined the uniform by looking first at the helmet on the right hand figure and it appears to have a Prussian Garde wappen on it, so I figured he was Prussian. Due to the white litzen on the collar and the Swedish cuffs, he can be identified as a Garde soldier. I then went to "Kaiser's Bunker" which has all of the uniform specifications listed and determined that only the 4. Garde-Regiment zu Fuß had plain light blue shoulder straps.