Full medal write up
Fabric measuring 74cm at the horizontal x 69cm at the vertical.
The cross itself has been cut off the fuselage at the seam at the top of the fuselage and a few mm after the tips of both ends of the horizontal, so that the cross is almost complete; all three arms measuring 29cm. The lower vertical has been cut short by 4cm and this was done to give the fabric a pretty much square shape. The reason for this is the shape of the fuselage tapers back and the lower left corner shows a notch in the fabric in the position of where the lifting handle would have been. This would be the maximum depth of the fabric at this point; this can be seen by setting a ruler across plans.
On the reverse of the fabric can be seen staining where part of the framing was. This is very useful as crosses were painted at specific points by specific manufacturers. This and the shape of the fabric, which also tapers back slightly right to left at the top, tells us this is from the starboard side of a DVII. The positioning of the frame staining (which can just be seen on the obverse also) in relation to the cross, tells us this is a Fokker or AOW built machine.
This very cross is featured on pages 14- 19 of Feldzug 18 by Michael Baldwin and was in the late author’s collection. Scans of these pages are sold with the fabric. In the book Michael sais he can identify this a specifically a Fokker built machine due to the orientation of the fabric itself, as well as the paint types used on the cross. I’m not convinced about this as I believe although their was a general orientation of how fabric was laid by these two manufactures, there does seem to have been exceptions.
Condition wise, the fabric is in excellent condition and is still pretty supple. The dope is not peeling off at all and the white paint shows only a little loss at the extreme vertical tips. The black paint has suffered more loss as the paint used did not wear as well, this is the same on most surviving DVII crosses.
A superb and rare WW1 cross from one of the most iconic and studied aircraft of WW1