Megan

Order of the Republic Instituted: 1969. 1st Class Badge:

Wissam al-Jihad Instituted: 1971. Awarded: For contributions to the well-being of the Libyan people.

Star: These were sent to me by James Miller, the master goldsmith who made them! He says that he made it about 1980 and it was all hand-made - the order was for 14 sets of the insignia and the short timescale meant that there was no time to prepare steel dies!

Order of the Grand Conqueror Badge:

Thanks, Christian. In researching current Austrian awards for my website I found quite a few - but is there a definative list of what may be worn? Would you be willing to permit me to use the image of your medal (with due acknowledgement of course)? Given its rarity I'm unlikely to see another!

Well done indeed! How 'official' is it? You imply that it can be worn in uniform, is that correct?

Your information is always welcome, dear heart!

Thanks to an extremely helpful e-mail from a friend, I have now sorted out my site... and added the 2nd Class Civil Cross of Honour for Merit as well!

Interesting... How do the Honour Cross for Merit and the Order for Merit relate to each other? How was a peacetime award to a military person presented, then? (I seem to be full of questions today - but then I teach by the Socratic method, and often learn by it as well!)

This, I think, is a Commander of the actual order: I would appreciate any comments...

On 29 August 2008 the Governor-General of Canada announced, on behalf of HM The Queen, that a new medal is to be established called the Sacrifice Medal. It is to be awarded to a member of the Canadian Forces, a member of an allied force, or a Canadian civilian under the authority of the Canadian Forces who, as of October 7, 2001, died or was wounded under honourable circumstances as a direct result of hostile action. The press release is to be found here: http://www.gg.ca/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID=5483, unfortunately only sketches are available as yet.

Very nice. Thank you for sharing...

Speaking as a former soldier, I would prefer not to advertise that I didn't duck fast enough! Never really been in favour of "enemy marksmanship awards" although I can see why some nations/people like to mark that someone put themselves in harm's way to the extent of being, er, harmed.

I think I have slight glimmerings of how this order works... but I have just spent 2 days (with prospect of another tomorrow) putting our students' names and course choices into the timetable matrix which is possibly one of the few tasks worse that trying to figure out the complete disorganisation of South Korean orders and my brain has fried!!!! At the weekend I shall tackle it.

Service Merit Medal (current form): Now back at work, so time for medals will reduce somewhat...

Order of Service Merit (current form) 4th Class:

Order of Service Merit (current form) 3rd Class:

No... it's just of all the official medals from around the world, Taiwan and the Philippines always look tacky compared to everyone else's designs. It's not the quality of the manufacture...

At least with websites, when new information comes to light it is easy to change... so I shall now get on to do some more... so the last 2 pictures I posted and your ones thereafter are the 1962 version....

Lovely.... But I am coming to the opinion that the South Koreans do not have orderly minds... this must be the most confusing, random and non-rational honours system I have attempted to document... ...and I'm rapidly running out of holiday to do it in. Back to work on Tuesday (even worse, they require us to turn up a week before we are actually needed so you end up hanging around doing nothing useful for the college and not able to get on with anything else either. Grrrr.)

A fine display. But do the actual medals look as cheap & tacky as they appear? Most look like they came out of cornflake packets.

Republic of Korea Medal (1st Class) Badge (as used 1949-67):

Order of Merit for National Foundation 1st Type (1949-67) Republic of Korea Medal (1st Class) Star:

Right - so these pictures are actually valid for 1967-71 - then the ribbon design but not the medal design changed, yes? Will scuttle off and amend things...

Here is the National Medal (3rd Class) of the 1967-90 era, a neck badge. There was also a star, but I don't have a picture of that.