South Africa Service Medal

[coastie]

Here is a very confusing medal. A 1901-02 South Africa service medal awarded to a Victorian Bushman, but it has an Orange Free state and Cape Colony bar attached. Supposedly only the 1901, 1902, 1901-02 are the only bars authorized. What would compel someone to replace the bars. So I would like to throw this out here and read your comments

[Adam H]

Hello Charlie,

As you've surmised this is a King's South Africa medal, which was usually issued with the bars "South Africa 1901" and "South Africa 1902". The "Orange Free State" and "Cape Colony" clasps are from the Queen's South Africa medal that the recipient would have also been awarded (King's South Africa medals were always issued with a Queen's medal, but the reverse is not always true).

Hard to say how these bars ended up on this medal. One would have to inspect the rivets, etc. to see if they have been tampered with. They look genuine enough to me so I would say that somewhere in its history this medal was doctored, possibly to replace a lost QSA or something along those lines. I would not say it was done to fool collectors as the bar combination is clearly wrong and would not pass close scrutiny by any collector at all familiar with these medals.

Doesn't clear much up I know but really it's difficult to say why these things happen in these types of cases.

Cheers,

Adam