THE JUNE/JULY EDITION OF MEDAL NEWS IS NOW ON SALE! Medal News is on sale at newsagents, from our website www.tokenpublishing.com or through the Token Publishing office, tel: 01404 44166. There are many interestng features in this month's magazine.
“Hero of Albuera”
A General killed on the battlefield
Qualification periods
Highlighting the trends that appear to be arising
Zulu II
A little-known British intervention in Zululand in the 1880s
The Wheelbarrow VC
Captain Richard Annand, the first army VC of World War II
Franklin
One of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War revisited
A Great War vignette
Following a thread
The musical Godfrey family
Four generations of musicians uncovered by the find of one LS&GC!
War Dog Jim
A pet that became a hero
Curse and be damned
A startling find
Home Front heroines
Girls who fought the fires
Gibraltar badges
An iconic “honour”
Regular Features:
THE EDITORIAL PAGE
NEWS AND VIEWS
MARKET SCENE
DEALERS’ LISTS
BOOKSHELF
ON PARADE
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
MEDAL TRACKER
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
DIARY
Medal News
June 2008
Volume 46 No. 6
Home front Heroines
Losing its shine
THERE can be no doubt that eBay has opened up our little hobby to a far wider audience. Where once we collectors and dealers simply bought and sold amongst each other and, if we were lucky, “from the family”, now there is a whole world out there that, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we are able to reach, both as potential buyers and, when necessary as sellers too. Suddenly what was once hidden, or popped up occasionally at boot sales, is now readily available as thousands of people realise that their old medals are worth something and sell them via the auction site. And the market place for sellers, once restricted to a few of us die-hards who subscribed to lists or visited shows, is opened up to include not only medal collectors but all those with an interest in local or family history too. eBay has allowed our hobby to be understood by many, many more people than we thought it could ever reach when we started MEDAL NEWS as a magazine in its own right 19 years ago. However, that’s the good side of eBay. There is, sadly, a downside to consider. You all know my feelings about the curse of the “copy” medals that proliferate on the site—one or two less-than-scrupulous individuals happy to destroy our hobby by purveying cheap and nasty rubbish, with no thought for the consequences and an eye only on making a fast buck. However, there is more to worry about than that. The fact that the internet has opened up the hobby has meant that anyone and everyone can become a dealer—and many do just that, inevitably leading to a decline in stock levels of the “proper” dealers. In the past, individuals not in the hobby wouldn’t know who to sell medals to except a dealer; now those same individuals often just hop on their computer and sell that way—meaning that dealers, if they want stock, have to buy from the same pot as the rest of us and, in order to make a living, inevitably have to add a percentage.
