Megan

I recognise the Medal "For Assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine" - it's already on my website. Instituted on 21 May 2008[1], this award was discontinued in the 2012 reforms and eventually reinstated on 9 December 2015[2]. The same insignia was used throughout. The insignia consists of an 8-pointed rayed star, 38mm in diameter. In the centre of the obverse there is a gilt, red-enamelled cross resting on a gilt wreath, this has a central roundel enamelled blue bearing the Trident national symbol. The reverse is plain, inscribed ЗА СПРИЯННЯ ЗБРОЙНІ СИЛИ УКРАЇНИ [FOR ASSISTANCE TO THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE]. [1] Order of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine № 218 of 21 May 2008. [2] Order of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine № 705 of 9 December 2015 “On Amendments to the Order of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine of 11 March 2013 № 165”

This is a fascinating resource, thanks for posting the link. Mostly about uniforms & insignia but there is a good section on Estonian Defence Forces' decorations at the back!

It's still growing... got the State Awards done (except new ones appear), some Ministry of Defence and some Ministry of Internal Affairs. Still hunting other ministry awards and then there are all the cities, etc. There will be a PDF eventually. I may even investigate print on demand for those who prefer a 'dead tree' book. That way you don't have the expense of a print run and the real advantage is that it never goes out of print! And you can add new stuff when it appears, just change the master PDF. Are the Facebook medal groups easy to find? Maybe I shall try it next year.

Things can get confusing! Looks like the person in your picture is wearing a uniform - OMAC? - in which case awards should be worn according to the regulations of the organisation whose uniform is being worn. In civilian dress, it is more up to the individual which of the awards they have received to wear. There is an order of precendence for awards from their own nation and other nations, which ought to be followed; and all national governmental awards should take precedence over those of non-governmental bodies... except possibly at events run by said bodies. In Australia, it's customary for non-national awards to be worn on the right breast, which can lead to an unbalanced look on such as firefighters or law enforcement officers who have been honoured by their organisations or states, but have few or no national awards. The matter gets even more complex when an individual adds in 'private purchase' medals to the mix!

Are there a lot of medal enthusiasts there? Maybe it is worth a visit after all... not that I am a fan of social media at all. The article posted earlier was very interesting. Plenty of food for thought and quite illunminating on the decidedly 'random' way in which Ukranian awards seem to have developed since independence. I'm still trying to make head or tail of them... now over 200 pages of notes!

Why not just continue discussing them here? Although interested in the topic I'm not going to join Facebook just to read your group...

The Spinks sale 21001 has 3 collars, described as for Chief, Elder, and Moran of the Order. Chief - The notes say that the Chief collar was awarded to The Honourable P. J. Ngei, who was a friend of Kenyatta having been imprisoned with him. He was one of the 'Kapenguria Six', forming the African People's Party; he took up a seat in the independent Kenyan Parliament in 1969. He died on 15 August 2004. Elder Moran The other two are not mentioned as having been awarded to anyone, just as being in a case of issue complete with ribbon bar.

Spinks sale 21001 has a couple of examples of this variant as well: Lot 1038, Chief Lot 1039, Moran. There do seem to be quite a lot in the wild, so it would be interesting to find out if they were ever actually awarded.

Probably because in Scotland ambulances are administered by a unitary body, the Scottish Ambulance Service (it's their badge that is used on the reverse) rather than the patchwork of 'Ambulance Trusts' who run ambulance services in the rest of the UK.

Instituted 5 July 1996.

One could argue that their service was not campaign serivce so a clasp on a GSM would be inappropriate. New Zealand created a separate series of 'Special Service Medals' which were awarded to recognise participation in other activities - things like the Boxing Day Tsunami, rescuing an aircraft that crashed in Antarctica, etc., as well as their nuclear test programme - and which are quite distinct from their medals and clasps for campaign service.

I don't know but there's a public consultation running until 5 December for people to express their opinions. I have just filled it out.

I saw that too... but you beat me to it posting here New Zeland's equivalent, the New Zealand Special Service Medal (Nuclear Testing) was instituted on 18 March 2002, and in common with other New Zealand Special Service Medals has the national arms on the obverse rather than a sovereign's head. It will be interesting to see what design they come up with for this one.

Looks like a fascinating rabbit hole to fall into. Is your book widely available?

The coinage head for King Charles III is uncrowned and set to remain so. Whether the same design will be used for medals will have to be seen.

Fascinating, she says, having found this thread whilst searching for information to update the Ethiopian section of my website.

Blows dust off topic... Busy updating Ethiopian area of my website. If anyone has any images of Ethiopian medals, espeically those from other than the Imperial era (which I can find in reasonable abundance!), that they'd be willing to share, please post them!

Accumulated Campaign Service Medal, I suppose... The first NEW Charles III medal will hopefully be his Coronation Medal. (Hopefully as anything else suggests the UK gets sucked into someone's war.)

You useful and informative soul, JapanX!!!

Looks interesting, worth bookmarking

All fascinating. I'm just thinking of how many medals will need to be updated on my website, and how long the new versions will start appearing so I can scuttle around begging for images!

My usual Sunday afternoon messing about with medals...

Trying to write a description of the Commemorative Medal on the Restoration of the Republic 1944 - but struggling to make out the inscription on the obverse. Does anyone with sharper eyes (or access to information I've not found yet) know what it says?

I think it's appropriate to limit award of a Coronation Medal to those actually present. Jubilees are a bit different, in marking the monarch's service it is appropriate to mark the service of other public servants... although maybe a rather broader interpretation of 'public servant' but with more than a mere 5 years' service would be better!

It's quite hard to make them out, and the full array is not visible... but I can see:- 1/ Order of St Andrew (light blue ribbon at the top) 2/ 3 Order of Lenin (1st row of cushions) 3/ Order of the Red Banner of Labour 4/ Order of Honour 5/ Possibly Medal for Maintaining Public Order Below that there seems to be some order sashes. I can make out the Order of St Agatha from San Marino (dark red with yellow and white edges) and the German (probably West Germany at the time of award) Order of Merit - which had several classes for which a sash & star formed the insignia, I need more detail to say which class it is!). Oh, for a decent image