British Medal Collecting

[anguspm]

Tony,my Auntie Dorothy threw her fathers cap,Victory Medal and BWM on the bonfire when my Grandma died

Thats horrific

There must be something about women with the name "Dorothy", he's another horror story:

I got into medals from seeing an mid 1950's photo of my grandfather in dress uniform. At the time of the picture he was a Major in the Royal Signals. What I noticed was the great line of ribbons and I asked my gran (Dorothy) what the medals were for. the response was: "Don't know, don't care, threw them in the rubbish when he died."

Well I took the pic into a local militaria shop at the time (Hythe in the south of England, Kent) and the helpful guy behind the counter explained the full set ,as they say:

DSO/C (not sure which one), MM, 39-45, Africa, Italy, F&G bar, GSM, LSGC

So the guy could show me examples of the stars of which I bought the cheapest (My 1st medal 39-45 star). The rest as they say are lost.

That's what happens when your Gran decides she is a Jehovahs witness!

Note: My grandfather had 40+ yrs service starting as a boy soldier in the LI before working his way up to RSM for the last 2yrs of WW2. He finished up as a half Colonel. The MM was awarded during the Italy campaign. After WW2 he commisioned into the Royal Signals (Cypher) and went on to serve in SHAPE (Versailles) where he was responsible for top security encoding and decoding of signals (used to enjoy telling US generals they weren't cleared to read the signals! ). I wish I knew more (and I'm sure there are some errors) but when your Gran doesn't want to talk about it and your father had no input from his father it's difficult to find out!

[nellyp51]

Wow..

[leigh kitchen]

[QUOTE=anguspm]Thats horrific

Well I took the pic into a local militaria shop at the time (Hythe in the south of England, Kent) and the helpful guy behind the counter explained the full set ,as they say:

DSO/C (not sure which one), MM, 39-45, Africa, Italy, F&G bar, GSM, LSGC

(/QUOTE]

Dealer sounds like Cyril Bussell, I think his shop was "The Den", on the main drag in Hythe. Closed down years ago, but I think he put an advert in "The Armourer" about 4 yrs ago.

[Grant Broadhurst]

Hello All ,

I have started to collect WW1 British s well as German WW1 , WW2 & 1957 for 2 reasons :

1 I have always wanted to have A grouping to my surname

2 I have always been interested in my local unit , The 11th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment " The Accrington Pals " .

I have been very lucky in the past 2 weeks as i had put an Ad on the Great War forum asking for medals named to Broadhurst , hey presto !

A casualty group of 2 ( Star and Victory ) to a William Albert Broadhurst in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps KIA 1918 aged 26 with lots of research

A trio to a Broadhurst in the Royal Engineers with research ( winging it,s wy over from Canada right now ! )

Also i managed to buy a pair and trio to the Accrington pals last week when a friend who owns a medal shop tipped me off that he had just got a lot of East Lancs stuff in and was going to sort out a couple of choice bits for me , apparentley the 11th East lancs didn't get the trio only the pair and the trio is the only one he has had in 3 years and only the 3rd or 4th he knows about

So that is another addiction i have to feed !!!

Grant

Also i,m looking for an original Air Crew Europe , but i dare not buy one of Ebay due to all the fakes floating about !

[Sammy]

Grant,

It's always nice when you can collect medals to your family name.

One of the best and certainly safest British medal dealers to buy from is Steve Verralls at Frontier Medals, apart form the fact that he has yonks of police service behind him, he's also straight guy to buy from.

Earlier today I received below notice of his website update for February. If you dont already deal with him, then have a look at his offerings at WWW.FRONTIERMEDALS.COM

I find that Steve is one of the few dealers who actively keep me notified if anything nice in my interests turns up. Youi never know he might even findsome Broadhurst medals for you.

Cheers.

Sam

[Rob Brown]

Whats the valueof British WW1 service medals. A guy offered me a set, where each medal cost £60.

[leigh kitchen]

It depands on things such as; unit, rank, whether a fatality, a gallantry award winner.

£15 - £20 is about right for a BWM & Victory pair to a common unit, low rank, non-fatality, but the ones you're being offered may well be worth £60 or more - it all depends on who they're to, what unit he's in etc.

[DJT]

Hi Guys,

Did you see this group on ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...528749891&rd=1

Fairly sad story if its true?

[DJT]

Perhaps this is a bit of horror story for you medal collectors but the family of a deceased SAS veteran sent me some of his wartime belongings. Among the items, the remains of his medal mounting and 2 medals. They ripped the medals off the mounting to get them professionally framed. For some reason 2 medals that were ripped off made it to me (Perhaps they had duplicates) I dont know. I guess thats a bit horrific but at the end of the day I have 2 medals that belonged to a WW2 SAS vet which is really nice. I have no way to prove it of course (they are not named). It does not bother me though because I would never part with them anyway. I am contemplating restoring the medal mounting. The medals I am missing are just the common stars and a defence medal i think. Want me to post a scan of the medal mounting? is it of interest? Opinions on what I should do?

[leigh kitchen]

Tempting, but sooner or later when the medals are prised from your cold dead hands they'll end up being flogged as an original group.

I'd go for the medals you've got plus a letter of provenance from the family & as much as you can get in the way of relevant information & paperwork & at least a copy photo in uniform if possible.

Additional cap badges etc always look good displayed with medals, but same problem as additional medals, they end up getting passed on as a group.

Some collectors represent the missing medals in a group by displaying a strip of the ribbons.

Each to his own.

[DJT]

Hi Leigh,

I know the veterans service history. I have a wartime photo of him and even a modern photo of him wearing the medals with the mounting previously mentioned. Representing the missing medals by just the ribbon might be the way to go. Thanks for the feedback

[P.Manoel]

United Nations Korea Medal Help

Hi Guys,

I have a come across a United Nations Korea Medal that is named to 27400428 T.J. Fortune. He is not an Aussie so I hoping someone can find out if he's a Canadian or possibly a Brit? I know the Brits didn't name these medals so it might be a Canadian? Any help would be appreciated as I've come to the end of my research in Australia.

Thanks
Paul

[P.Manoel]

Bloody hell. The scan is upside down. Here's a better one!

[dannybou]

Bloody hell. The scan is upside down. Here's a better one!

Did you ever get a reply to your quest?

[dannybou]

OK I've decided to expand my collection from Soviet awards to British preferably Canadian medals. I've been buying several books lately, some medal rolls and one on Canadian awards. Now I am looking for information on pricing. I have the Medal Yearbook 2005 and have read that the prices quoted in this book series isn't accurate. What do the British collectors use for a benchmark on prices? A particular website that I should be visiting? Any info would be appreciated as I don't want to pay too much for a particular medal, but then again I want to pay a fair price for the seller as well. Thanks