MEDAL NEWS DECEMBER/JANUARY NOW ON SALE! Your Medal News magazine which is published 10 times a year and specialises in medals, medal-collecting and military matters is now on sale at newsagents or from www.tokenpublishing.com
News-Antique.com - Nov 29,2007 - Articles in the magazine this month:
Uncovering the past
Researching a great-grandfather's war
A family history
Futher sacrifice for the Cardew family
Allenby at the gates of Jerusalem
Liberation of a nation and an important political coup
From infancy in a workhouse
From a desperate start to a steady career in the service of his country
Savage Christmas
Surrender of the Crown Colony
Eager to Fight
Taking on the enemy with determination and daring
Heroes of the Albert Medal
Chief Engineer George Henry White AM, MN
The Special Constabulary, medals and research
A personal interest in the "Hobby Bobbies"
Badges of the Middlesex Regiment - Part I
Taking a look at a larger country regiment
Regular Features:
THE EDITORIAL PAGE 5
NEWS AND VIEWS 7
MARKET SCENE 13
FROM THE ARCHIVE 45
BOOKSHELF 50
ON PARADE 51
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 52
DEALERS' LISTS 53
MEDAL TRACKER 54
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING 57
DIARY 61
EDITORIAL:
Method in our madness.
APPEARING on eBay recently has been a new phenomenon—medal groups that are billed as “tributes”. They are not original groups, nor do they purport to be. What they are is made-up items, usually using original medals where possible (e.g. in the case of World War II stars) and copies where applicable (with high value gallantry specifically), all brought together as a replica of the original group as worn by a particularly well-known serviceman, be they decorated hero or war leader. The seller doesn’t claim that they are the recipient’s group and doesn’t claim anything to do with the recipient, but simply implies that they are a representation of what was awarded. Presumably potential buyers would purchase simply because they wanted such a group and purchasing the originals would be beyond their pockets, even if they were to come on the open market.
A recent discussion on the internet British Medal Forum (www.britishmedalforum.com) brought a particular group to our attention—the VC, DSC group of nine to Canadian Lt Robert Gray—and we followed the ensuing discussion with some interest. On the whole the response of members of the BMF was as expected: the sort of response we would expect from most of our readers.. . that here was someone jumping on the bandwagon of medal collecting and in fact such a group as this really wasn’t worth even thinking about. This opinion was apparently backed up by bidders, as the eBay sale finished without the reserve being met. One contributor to the forum stated that he’d “rather have a WWI pair to a private or driver in one of the corps than a pile of fakes to represent medals won by a VC winner. I suppose that’s because I collect medals”, and that is, I imagine, something many of us would agree with. However, there is a problem with that—and it takes us back to the old question about what we collect and why. I have said many times in this Comment that we don’t just collect metal and silk, that in fact we
