Brimfield Find: Naval Officer? ID Help - San Fran

Try Spanish or Mexican. That doesn't say September it says Setiembre, which is Spanish for September. It's an older form than Septiembre but both are used.

 

Interesting... So I wonder what he was doing in San Francisco? The Mexican idea would be plausible, although SF is several hundred miles away from Mexico.

 

Scantic,

There are several places you can post online to try to identify the uniform. There is a forum that Spring is involved with (and sorry that I forgot the name) that helped me with a uniform photo once. And also, the Victorian Images group on Facebook happens to have several members who know a lot about military uniforms.

 

I vote along with Spring and Davey on probably German. I tried ID'ing the country via the belt buckle, buttons and sword. The closest I could come up with was Germany, but this was iffy.

The buckle is an entwined anchor possibly topped with a star surrounded with a wreath and/or laurel. I couldn't find a German anchor and star combo. Really the only anchor and star combos I could find were for the Soviet Navy and the Ottoman Empire Navy. This is definitely not a Soviet uniform or timeframe. The Ottoman buckle had a crescent under the anchor. The German Imperial Navy buckles I found had the Imperial/Kaiser crown above the anchor - before 1919. The German Weimar Republic Naval buckles did have an entwined anchor and wreath. The problem here is that the Weimar Republic didn't come into existence until 1919 - ***after*** WWI. Under the Weimar Republic the navy was called the Reichsmarine. Here are a couple Weimar Naval belt buckles:

Scroll about 1/4th of the way down the page to:
"13-834 REICHSMARINE OFFICER - BROCADE BELT - BUCKLE."
https://www.derrittmeister.com/navy.htm

Scroll down to #5 reply "Weimar Brocade" buckle. It is very similar to the those of WWI in #6 reply:
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/kriegsmarine/marine-navy-15101/

The buttons appear to be an entwined anchor. The only German naval buttons I could find with **only** and anchor were the Kriegsmarine buttons. This was the Nazi navy from 1930-1945. The Ottoman Naval buttons had an entwined anchor but with a crescent under the anchor.

Here are the Ottoman buckle and buttons with the entwined anchor and crescent below - buckles at top of page and buttons at bottom:
http://www.ottoman-uniforms.com/ww1-ottoman-imperial-navy-uniforms/

The pommel of sword appears to be a lion head with the "Knuckle Bow," or guard fixed in the lion's mouth. The bottom of the guard is wide and ornate. On the following page scroll down about 1/2 way to:
"RWS130 - Imperial German Marine Officer's Sabre"
It has the lion and a wide ornate guard:
http://www.esford.com/armourygerman.htm
http://www.esford.com/Collectors swords/RWS130 German Naval Officer's Sword/RWS130 collage.jpg

I was also hoping it would be Benjamin Franklin Day because of Ford's theater. Here is what the New York Times wrote about him.

"Rear Admiral Day Dies at Age 92; Oldest Officer in American Navy Had Retired After Forty Years’ Service; Wounded in Civil War; Saw Lincoln Assassination at Ford’s Theatre – Had Part in Building of the Modern Navy."

Have included a badly zoomed and edited pic of the belt buckle and buttons. What if anything is above the anchor 1st appeared to me as a star. Nowwww after posting it here I wonder if it could be the German Imperial/Kaiser crown???? If it is a crown then probably from German Imperial era, pre 1919.

Ooops, I see Bear came up with Spanish before I could post this reply. That is no doubt correct. Oh, well, am going to post this anyways.

--- Susan

 

See I was thinking it was possibly British Navy because I found this photo of an actual Admirals uniform & sword. They looked similar, but with the Spanish info, my judgement is off.

http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/military-history/art372442

 

Another reason I liked the Spanish or Mexican idea is that when I first saw the writing before "Day" I thought the longer word looked Spanish (although could not make it out).

However, "Day" is not a Spanish name, nor is it German. Could that last word be another word besides "Day" -- and we are just seeing it that way because we are English speakers?

How about Diaz?

 

I've tried to get a nice close up of the belt & Medals

Hope this may help!

Thank you all for all of your help! It's been a fascinating journey reading all of your posts!

 

Looks like the "Star" shaped medal has a face in it. That may help us find out the country of origin! I'm on the hunt

 

Whatever it is, not British.

Diaz is a thought.

 

I did also find these buttons, and they are "French"

 

OK, looking again. The name starts with what I think may be Sr. Then another initial and a name that starts A and ends a, which is niggling the back of my mind. I think Diaz may well be the surname. There's a lion face on that belt. I'm wondering if he's a diplomat in court dress.

 

The initial between Sr and the name is F.

 

Both belt buckle and buttons have fouled anchor with 5-pointed star at top.

 

I think he may have just been referring to the sword handle

 

I think he's in the Chilean Navy. That explains both the star-over-anchor and the Spanish language inscription on the back.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...41px-Coat_of_arms_of_the_Chilean_Navy.svg.png

 

WOW! Why are these pictures as big as, well...not THAT planet but Jupiter then!!! WOW!

 

You are 100% Correct! It is in fact Chilean Navy. This has been confirmed over on another board. Apparently the medals are from the Lima Campaign & The War in The Pacific. (Between Peru & Bolivia Vs. Chile)

To be honest a war that I had never heard of. Lol

Apparently the Chilean navy only had 23 ships in 1880 so the Navy wasn't that large.

 

Another odd tid bit. In 1891 the Chilean Navy fought the Chilean Army in a revolution.

 

I certainly agree, fouled (entwined) anchor topped with a star as I thought in my reply. The sword Davey found looks the same as the one I found.

The pommel of sword appears to be a lion head with the "Knuckle Bow," or guard fixed in the lion's mouth. The bottom of the guard is wide and ornate. On the following page scroll down about 1/2 way to:
"RWS130 - Imperial German Marine Officer's Sabre"
It has the lion and a wide ornate guard:
http://www.esford.com/armourygerman.htm
http://www.esford.com/Collectors swords/RWS130 German Naval Officer's Sword/RWS130 collage.jpg

I haven't anything to add to the name though like Bear said the first may be a title of some kind follow by a given, middle and surname. Instead of a separate given and middle name, it may be a long given name with a space in the middle??? If that is a separate given and middle name, the given name may be John; however, the middle name isn't capitalized????

--- Susan