Megan

1. Order of Ushakov - to naval commanders for meritorious service. 2. Medal for Military Valour Class 2 Not sure about the rest yet, will have to dig a bit! Your man was perhaps a Naval Attaché... so a serving naval officer in a diplomatic posting.

India General Service Medal 1854-1895. The clasps awarded are listed here: http://medals.org.uk/united-kingdom/united-kingdom031.htm These do include expeditions to Burma...

Same ribbon as the Saxe-Ernestine House Order - pinkish-purplish red with green edges and a narrow dark blue stripe just to the inside of the green.

Kingdom of Romania: Medal for Military Virture, instituted 13 November 1926. This is the Type 1 (1926-1940) Class 2: Silver Medal with crown described as a civil award for 'navigating personnel'.

Let me know when you are back (and PM your e-mail address) and I'll send you a copy over. I had noticed the simularity of sash and flag, rather neat :) Wonder how it is done as a ribbon bar?

Thank you... 2 more to add... :)

This is all fascinating and informative, as I'm working on the Venezuela section of my website at the moment! Just to add even more confusion, it appears that the entire thing was dropped and replaced in 2010 by the Orden Libertadores y Libertadoras de Venezuela in collar and 3 classes - and a quite different centrepiece to the badge, if a rather scruffy image in the Spanish version of Wikipedia is to be believed. No idea as to the design of the stars worn by Class 1 and Class 2, yet. The ribbon is yellow/blue/red with small white stars on the blue stripe. I have found the law creating it, In Spanish of course, and am struggling my way through a translation (my Spanish is at the 'May I have a beer, please?' and 'Where is the bathroom?' level!). If anyone's good at Spanish I can send a copy over, she says hopefully... I have found an image from earlier this year of a 100-year old musician called Juan Vicente Torrealba receiving the Class 1 of the order - you can see the stars on the sash and the star but it is not at all clear.

Very nice, Ilya!

Fascinating, thanks Antonio.

Review now posted (see Books section below).

My copy has just arrived and it's beautiful! More coherent comments to follow after I've stopped drooling over the pictures and actually read it!

Of course, it's Eid al-Fitr isn't it. Have a wonderful festival. Eid mubarak.

I am looking forward to seeing this... :)

The Greek is basically the title of each medal Διασυμμαχικόν Μετάλλιον Νίκης = Allied Victory Medal Πολεμικός Σταυρός = War Cross (3rd Class) Αριστείον Ανδρείας = literally 'Award for Bravery', usually called the Cross of Valour.

All Vietnam-era, bottom 2 are US. Top: Unknown, probably one of the 'joke' patches that were made up in country and worn unofficially. Middle: (blue with wing) is 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (normally seen with a white on blue AIRBORNE arc above). Bottom: (red with sword) is US Military Assistance Command Vietnam.

Pretties! Thank you for sharing, Frank.

Thank you, Emmanuel, for sharing fascinating images of rarely-seen medals. As for the somewhat ungentlemanly bickering, all I can say from my own experience is that storekeepers can often been quite reluctant to hand out the stuff you ARE entitled to, never mind anything else

A bit of background for you. As you know, a Guardsman has no insignia on his tunic. A Lance Corporal in the Guards has 2 white stripes on his sleeve. Everywhere else in the British Army, a Lance Corporal has a single stripe. It's said that Queen Victoria declared that no man with a single stripe on his tunic would guard her, so the Guards Lance Corporals got an extra stripe. Of course, this posed a bit of a problem, because 2 stripes normally means a Corporal. Three stripes mean a Sergeant. So the Guards instituted the rank of Lance Sergeant and gave him 3 white stripes, like the one Graf has. A Guards Sergeant has 3 GOLD stripes on his sleeve. Colour Sergeants have an actual picture of a standard (colour)... and the Regimental Sergeant Major has a huge Royal coat-of-arms on his sleeve!

Yes, it's decidedly unusual to have crossed swords mounted this way! There's no maker's mark that I can see (Carsten Zeige Auction 59, 2018-03-24, lot 339 if anyone's interested) but it could be a foreign-made one commissioned by the recipient back home if, perhaps, he was German. Or it could indicate a civil award at a higher level than a previously-awarded military award of the Order. Some thoughts. Megan

More fascinating pictures, thanks Paja. And I quite understand, if it's important to you to control your images then you sometimes need to take extreme measures! Thank you for the offer of unwatermarked pictures, if there's anything I want a closer look at I shall make a request.

A fine array - you've been busy, Paja. Thank you for sharing... .. but, any chance you could make your watermarking a little less obtrusive. It gets hard to pick out detail in places, and is rather distracting.

Interesting - I knew the Order of Merit had changed design but not why... until now!

Fascinating stuff... particularly as I have been working on the Romanian section of my website recently!

I have it under Abu Dhabi, being awarded for 8 years' service in, as Owain says, the Abu Dhabi Defence Force. Nice picture... the image I have is, alas, without ribbon.

You rang? Looks like the badge appendant from the chain Mnangagwe is wearing, which is the collar of the Zimbabwe Order of Merit - they use it as the President's badge of office. Red star, green wreath, gold centre motif; above is the arms of Zimbabwe: -