Megan

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: -

Well, that's a fantastic website, to be sure. I'd found it last year but forgotten all about it!

Nope, seems to be a random thing.... possibly different manufacturers?

Why, thank you most kindly... yes, I could do with some images of the genuine beast! May I have your full name for the acknowledgements, please?

The DFC ribbon is not normally worn with any adornment, certainly not a cloth rosette. If the recipient receives a 'second award' of the DFC, this is denoted by a bar on the ribbon when medals are worn and by a silver rosette when ribbons only are worn.

Thanks... I think I've got them sorted now Until the next one...

Thank you, Frank... more Russian goodies But where do they go in the order of precedence of Russian Ministry of Defence awards?

Came across this: ... then found this thread when trying to figure out what it was. Any thoughts?

Common with Zimbabwe!

Just the silver medal.

I have a few pictures here: http://medals.org.uk/sweden/sweden004.htm There are also some here: http://www.omsa.org/images/?parent=881 Dealers you could try include eMedals - see https://www.emedals.com/europe/sweden/orders/order-of-vasa Examples quite often show up at auction too...

Beautiful images, but as Paja says, identifying them would be helpful - I know most of them, but Albanian ODM are fairly obscure...