sumserbrown

Hello everybody, comments (good or bad) welcome please on this one. best wishes Rob

This is the Delaware WWI state victory/service medal #8197 issued to HT Cummings. I have had this in my collection around 10 years and never knew anything about it, but I was recently pointed to a thread about the WW1 Delaware medal on USmilitariaforum.com and within an hour of me posting this morning I had a couple of helpful people post newspaper cuttings and his WW2 draft registration card and suddenly I know a great deal about him. Turns out he was a Captain in the Ordnance Dept. B. 27-Nov-1884 Meadville PA, lived a long time in New Castle, DE and ended up in Baltimore MD before dying 10-Feb-1945

There is a Cuban victory medal on Ebay for $975. That seems expensive to me, but maybe demand is fuelling inflation of prices.

Thank you, that is really interesting. I actually bought both of these together from Sidney Vernon and I had assumed that they were the same group, one being the medals themselves and the others the ribbon bar of exactly the same group. Now you are telling me that actually these belong to two completely different people, which I had never appreciated before. two additional questions for clarification: 1/ Do you get the long service medal for the first 4 years and then each chevron represents an additional 4 years, or does 4 chevrons equal a total of 16 years service? 2/ what does the star on the national reconciliation medal denote? many thanks Rob

I posted this previously on another GMIC thread but will post here too. I also have one of the enamel ribbon bars with stars instead of chevrons on the long service medal. I have three questions for the panel: 1/ Does this group belong to an officer? 2/ How many years service is denoted by having 4 chevrons on the long service medal? 3/ What does the star on the national reconciliation medal mean, as I have seen some versions without this star? thanks in advance Rob

Hi Graham, if you want I can let you have the abomination I used as a placeholder until I managed to buy the real one. It's a hideous modern piece I think from the UK, but it lets you pretend you have that elusive and expensive Siam medal (if you squint hard enough) ? best wishes Rob

Thanks Bill, some very good photos of medals from your excellent collection in there too I see ?

Hi Bill, thanks again for the reply (don't seem to be many of us on these interallied victory medal fora at the moment!). It looks good to me, but always great to have a second opinion. What surprised me when I took this out of its wallet was how light it was compared to most of the other victory medals, but when I looked it up in Laslo after, he says exactly the same thing and this was extra reassuring. I bought this medal almost 12 years ago from a dealer in Bangkok who assured me it was genuine and thankfully he was right as this was the last of the series for me to obtain and it was very expensive! cheers Rob

Hi Bill Thanks for the cleaning tips; I might try it when I feel brave enough ? I had a look at the website you suggested but I don't think my medal is any of those listed up there. best wishes Rob

Thanks Bill. It's the sort of information I should have read up before I bought it 14 years ago! Hopefully everyone is a bit more careful these days as there is so much more information out there on the internet and much better photos to compare to. best wishes Rob

I have made some excellent medal purchases in the past, but I certainly made loads of mistakes too. I have learnt a lot from this forum so I don't mind owning up and helping others by pointing out the errors I made and how I got duped into buying something next to worthless ? Today's lesson reminds us to be less trusting of some dealers and not simply take everything they say as honest fact Make sure you get good pictures before you buy and then carefully inspect your purchase when it arrives, not 14 years later when you are taking high-res photos of your collection! Caveat emptor. This is the so-called 'Dollar' variety of the US victory medal: ....except it isn't. It's a normal US victory with the suspension cut off and polished down ? Luckily I didn't pay too much for it so now it's just a worthless curio to refer back to and warn me. Happy purchasing all! Rob

There is no 'MADE IN FRANCE' stamp on the back of the claps, but you could be correct in what you think. That for me would be OK if true as at least that way you could argue that they are old clasps designed for veterans and filling a gap in the market while the real medals were issued. My biggest concern would be if these were outright forgeries produced more recently for the specific purpose of fooling collectors. Is there any evidence to prove that these are 1920s or 1930s produced clasps? thanks Rob

Not sure. I would like better photos of it to have a really good look. Maybe Lambert could ask them in Portuguese for some more information. best wishes Rob

If any of you are looking for one there seems to be a Brazilian vic for sale at Mercado Livre right now....

Hello everyone, what do you make of these two Belgian unofficial type 3's? The one on the left is 37mm diameter and 1.1mm thickness at the 3 o'clock. The one on the right is 36.6mm diameter and 1.4mm thick. I have my own thoughts but interested to hear what everyone thinks....

Thanks Graham. Yes actually never had any doubts about it - passed all of my inspections too, but always good to have the reassurance of a second opinion that confirms it.

Taisho would make sense as this is how the Japanese traditionally number their years, based on the year of the reign of the current emperor. Taisho 3 is 1914, Taisho 8 is 1919. The Taisho period continued until 1926 when the Showa period started under Emperor Hirohito. I just checked my Japanese victory medal (with original ribbon) for a stamp hidden by the ribbon but I don't have one. So the question is how often do you see such a medal with a stamp and why would some ribbons have them and others not. The other possibility that occurs is that the size and shape of this stamp looks like a Hanko, the individual and unique stamps that all Japanese people use to identify themselves on official documents (instead of the Western signature). Could it be that someone has personalised their medal? This is my medal - not the prettiest ribbon, but I did buy it at a flea market in Tokyo so it feels authentic ?

This is today's unknown medal and I would like everyone's opinion please. So this looks like a French-made reproduction from the 20's or 30's. It has a French-made St.Mihiel clasp (MADE IN FRANCE on back). It has the ball suspension, no 'FRASER' designed name on the obverse and no edge markings at all so it looks like it should be one of Laslo's Repro Type 1's but it is only 35.4mm diameter and 2.0mm thick at the 3o'clock. Laslo thinks the repro Type 1 should be 36mm+

My greatest regret in all my years of medal collecting was a not buying one I saw on Ebay about 14 years ago. It was a genuine US victory medal with some bars and it went for $1500 (!), but to this day I wish it had been me that bought it. It was the holy grail of US victory medals, a 9-bar version with the original clasp slip. Someone out there has it....?

Great collection; good to have so much research to go with them too. Rob

This thread has gone very quiet, I hope that we can jump start some interest as I really enjoy collecting the WW1 US town and county medals in particular due to the (relatively) high number of them out there and the huge diversity in the medals, ribbons and brooches. I will put up some of my favourites over the next few weeks but first a question related to Tim B's excellent postings a while back, particularly about the boxes that the medals arrived in. I have a Seneca Co, Ohio medal made by the Robbins Company, MA. Louis Small estimates 1779 of these given to veterans but rather than coming in a small, cardboard box, mine is in a solid jewellery box, also named inside as having come from the Robbins Co. This seems a little too extravagant (and expensive?) to have given to every soldier, so does anyone have any thoughts on this? Rob

Here is my official type 2, diameter 35.8mm with what looks and feels like a very old ribbon. Does it look original to you or is it a replacement? I guess it's a personal choice to clean it up or leave it as it is, but if I did want to clean it, what is the best way to do this? thanks Rob I bought this one as a reissue type 2 - it has a diameter of 35.9mm any thoughts on this one? thanks Rob

Hi Dave, I am back on the forum again after some time and finally re-found my Siam victory medal, which I had in carelessly misplaced! Here is a photo; I am hoping it is genuine.... Rob

Hi Bill sorry for the slow response, I had to buy some new calipers. My type 2 is 36.1mm diameter and 2.2mm thick at the 3 o'clock position . The 2c is 27mm diameter and 1.4mm thick Rob

Recently I have been photographing my medals (for insurance purposes) and it's amazing how much detail you can then see when you zoom into a high resolution photo. What I see is that my version of the medal seems to be maybe lighter in colour but also with a great deal more detail visible than some of the other versions posted on the forum. So an obvious question - is my medal genuine or not. Is it such a good copy that it is TOO detailed or has it just had less wear than some of the others. Open to any thoughts from the team...