Wessel Gordon

Sampo, 

Thanks for the advice.

We are busy renovating the house before selling and moving so I put all my medals into temporary storage (got workers in and out and it's best not to tempt sticky fingers). Once I'm settled in the new house I'll try it with a medal I don't particularly care about first.

Pete,

Thanks for the education. I should research more before jumping to conclusions.

Pete, 

Am I correct that in assuming that the upper three levels of the Member of the British Empire, namely Knight Grand Cross, Knight Commander and Commander gives the holder the title of ''Sir'' or ''Lady'' and therefor outrank the DSO?

The two lower levels Officer of the British Empire and Member of the British Empire only confer the post nominal letters OBE or MBE and nothing else and therefor rank after the DSO?

It really does make a difference but after the e-mail from the supplier that basically said ''It's not our problem any longer'' I'm not going to make a fuss about it with them. I might get lucky and get the correct ribbons somewhere else.

I'm convinced if I dig around long enough on the right sites I might find a supplier that's willing to supply the correct ribbons at minimal cost to me.

I purchased the 9 British WWII campaign stars as a set recently and thought of asking the same supplier to make a ribbon bar for them but after this I'm better off finding a better source for the bars and ribbons...there's no rocket science with weird tools involved in mounting ribbons on a bar if you have time and patience.

Just a question out of curiosity about Bismarck.

I've read somewhere that although he was created Prince of Bismarck (inheritable by descendants) and Duke of Lauenburg (what the British would call a ''life peerage) he was bitterly disappointed that he wasn't given a territory to reign over as sovereign. Is there any truth in that?

Goodness gracious.

It seems if he wanted to wear all those at once he would have needed a wheelbarrow the length of a railroad cart to carry the weight...can't see how it's humanly possible to wear all those awards at once.

Pete,

My contact at the supplier's reply was basically ''fix it yourself...if you struggle return it'''. 

I managed to slip the wrongly assembled ribbons off and re-affix them in the order you suggested. I attach a pic of the new ribbon...is the order now correct?

Kind regards,

Wessel

I'm not going to make an issue about the missing crosses...simply not worth the effort in my view.

Pete,

Thank you.

Quote

 

Pete,

I noticed the missing crosses but first wanted to sort out the order of precedence before I query the manufacturer, I didn't see the point of making an issue about missing crosses if the order of the ribbons are messed up as well.

The MBE I have is just that a Member, thus the lowest class albeit the military division. 

So if I understand your explanation correctly the correct ribbon placing should have been top row: Victoria Cross and George Cross and bottom row: DSO, MBE, DSC and lastly the MC?

Kind regards,

Wessel 

From the looks of that ribbon they simply took the list of medals I have and made the ribbon accordingly, after I specifically told them I am not sure of the order of precedence and to ignore the way I listed my medals and create a ribbon bar according to military standards.

I ordered a ribbon bar of my six British medals that I had at that point and received the ribbon bar today. I asked them to follow the prescribed order of precedence but something looks off. Any comments are welcome.

Top row: MBE (Military Type), Victoria Cross

Bottom Row: George Cross, DSO, DSC and Military Cross.

My question: according to my research the DSO (as an order) was created well before the MBE and therefor should have pride of place at the right and then the MBE with the four ''medals'' below them. Am I correct or am I further into dotage than I think I am?

Kind regards,

Wessel Gordon

Having another critical look at my medals it seems like a better split would be four-ways: pilot, soldier, marine and reserve.

Considering my medals so far what do other collectors think of that idea?

And with the addition of the Army Distinguished Service Cross I have two empty spaces left on my ribbon bars which is due to arrive any day...any suggestions?

I really like the ribbon bar at the top and never would have suspected that Yemen issues such striking medals but then I remembered Yemen lies in a volatile neighborhood (note: I am not trying to make anyone mad but simply stating what type of news filters through to South Africa) so there's probably no shortage of opportunity to issue medals.

I have to agree with the other two posters about ribbons...I have seen some very well preserved ribbonless-medals on sites for sale and yet it didn't spark my interest. I noticed the market for ''after market'' ribbons are quite large but still if a medal isn't for sale with it's ribbon (even if I have to end up replacing the ribbon) it doesn't attract my attention.

27 Classes and grades? That seems like an admin nightmare to put it very mildly.

Not to mention on the confusing criteria it must have involved to be ''promoted'' to a higher class or grade.

Just added a Distinguished Service Cross with two oak leaf clusters to my collection. Working on getting the miniature and ribbon both fitted with the same clusters but that's a project for next week.

Oh ok.

Paul Wood,

I assume from the above discussion that is isn't beyond impossible that a soldier could have a medal he was legally entitled to engraved at personal expense.

Which begs another question: did Boots the Chemist and other engraving establishments keep records of which medals they engraved to eliminate fraudsters and thievery?

Just asking out of curiosity. I received all 9 the British campaign stars of WW 2 today which brings my total medal count to 85 but having them all engraved might make the bank manager think I want to trigger another Great Depression, lol.

Peron,

To answer your original question your best start would probably be to try and contact the West Yorkshire Regiment (if they still exist...not sure) or someone with access to British archives for that period and regiment but the information might be lost or classified so don't pin your hopes on finding out all you can fairly quickly.

I'm from South Africa and have a few original medals engraved with a serial number. I approached a researcher in that field with the medal name and number. His e-mailed response within 5 minutes was: ''I can help you if you have lots of time (read as ''money to pay my fee'') and it's most likely going to be original medals that was struck and given a serial number but never issued'' (he based the last bit on the serial number itself. So they are genuine medals but they most likely spent years laying on a warehouse shelf till some officer decided to start selling surplus medals to collectors. 

My surname is Gordon so this thread immediately caught my eye..makes we wonder if me and your uncle is somehow related assuming his surname was Gordon.

It's good to see that at least one Gordon did more than his fair share in WW 2...seems like he was a very busy soldier.

Sorry for rambling on in this thread but I post as I think of stuff.

The danger of splitting my collection into 3 parallel collections (army, air force, marines) is the obvious: there will always be that one medal I'm missing for one particular branch and them notice a medal from another branch I want and so the cycle continues and I keep buying medals.

So as Hugh rightly remarked my collection is quite eclectic (and certainly not practically achievable for a fictitious soldier) I'm still sure it's the right thing to add three more medals and then stop.

Having said that: any suggestions/remarks are always welcomed even if they are critical.

For some reason I'm more into the Egyptian stuff...but luckily we can both agree in peace he's a great writer.

I bought the one offered for R 500 by lastchancebooks.

I also bought a secondhand copy from them of one of my favorite books: ''River God'' by Wilbur Smith...but that bit didn't involve BidorBuy.

Hugh,

Do you agree with the above suggestions of splitting the collection into three or should I go about it another way?

Wessel

Regarding the MOH it will have to belong to the fictitious pilot simply because of the fact that it's the Air Force version.

fjcp,

I did end up buying it but so far just flipped through it since we're busy renovating house to sell but it does look interesting.

Hugh,

Thanks for the suggestions. There's quite a few things for me to think about.

My original idea was stop at 30 medals (one nice rack of 30 medals) but I got a few offers from sellers I couldn't resist so added 3 more medals...and the biggest single ribbon/medal rack available is 30 so I opted for the next best thing of 9 per rack which leaves me with 3 extra spaces right now.

And you are right: I made the classic mistake of going ''oh that's a nice medal, I'll buy it'' instead of focusing on a single branch of the military. The only services I actively tried to exclude was the navy and coast guard since it seemed I had to draw the line somewhere but even so a navy medal or two have slipped in.

The other natural option is to split the collection into: army, air force and marine which will involve 3 hypothetical soldiers.

The obvious first point in all 3 cases is to decide when the soldier enlisted because that would impact the campaign medals and the natural progression of medals thereafter. The enlistment date will also obviously affect the date of retirement for each soldier as, for example, a naval aviator that was a hot-shot  pilot in WWII, was probably either dead or very well into retirement when 9/11 rolled around.