Ed_Haynes

The Royal (left) and Republican (right) service medals. Sorry for the difference in scale. You wanted the General Service Medals, right? Not the distinguished service medals? Since the invasion and occupation commenced, I have stopped getting any new items for my Iraqi collection, so I can't help with pricing questions.

I have never seen an Egyptian or legitimate Jordanian (non-Arab-Legion) WWII group with British medals. That is, groups to Egyptians and Jordanians, not to insinuated Europeans. If you have these, I'd love to see them. WWI was, of course, another issue.

And so long as people buy these fakes, whether intentionally or through simple lack of knowledge, the fakers and the sales venues that tolerate and encourage them will prosper and the field will grow more and more polluted with both fakes and ignorance. It is all very depressing.

No, Iraq was nominally independent from 1931. Why would you think they would get foreign awards?

The PS type 3 theory still holds, but we need to remember the frequency with which screwplates are swapped around, both by recipients and dealers. Still, I think a pattern of recycling holds. So who made these type 3 Polar Stars? Note that they are not marked "МОНЕТНЫЙ ДВОР" as the type 2s are. I know we don't know (yet), but it is a question worth asking.

Interesting additions. Thanks, Bob! I have to assume that anything numbered must have (or once have had) a corresponding register of numbers matched up with names and dates. Unless of course -- and some friends in Ulanbaatar make this argument -- it was that things numbered appeared to the recipients to be more important than things unnumbered, and therefore numbers were added to some badges to make the recipients feel better. Personally, I still hold to the first theory: That "out there" there are (or were) rolls just awaiting an inspired researcher. Some day, after we have rolls for all the orders and major medals, . . . ???

These are vitally, importantly, soon-to-become collectible-in-their-own right pieces of primary Teutonic research. I so wish they were closer to my core interests . . . . Them as cares, buy 'em, NOW. Or regret, later . . . .

And, by the way, I'm sorry I can't render this in Devanagri, the forum doesn't allow for this.

Oh . . . Mujhe khaas maloom to abhi tak nahin aate hat!

As they say in my -- basketball-infused -- part of the world: Ka-thunk!

As a non-speaker and non-reader of Russian, I am now very confused by the arcane discourse here . . . .

Thanks for this, Eddie. It is important to separate the two. The Arab Legion was a British unit, for all intents and purposes, though technically Jordanian. The Muslim (rarely Arab) units formed in Germany (and Italy) by the Grand Mufti (among others) were unfortunate by-products of a simplistic logical falacy in international relations theory: That the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Azad Hind Fauj, the Free Burmese Army, and many others during the war fell prey to this sort of thinking. It is perhaps unfortunate for future events that the Grand Mufti's flirtation with the Nazis discredited his political leadership (while not the brightest bulb in the string, he was the leading prewar Palestinian political symbol/spokesman) when it came to postwar events. It didn't hurt Nasser, Sadat, or others, but the Grand Mufti would be out of the picture postwar, leaving a vacuum that would be years in being filled. The length to which Germany went over these is amazing. I once had the need to suffer through all the files in records from the Reichsfuhrer-SS trying to concoct an argument that Hitler was the Mahdi.

Thanks, Rick! Would be interesting to know what "vystpulenii" are.

There is a 40 year medal, but pretty elaborate in design and quite rare (as you might expect). Nothing longer, obviously.

I'm sure someone lifted them. Have they shown up on e$cam yet?

While, like everything else on Wikipedia, it has problems (shows 3 living French veterans, for example), see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_vet..._of_World_War_I

So . . . out of all those, just one survives? Sobering thought.

Just PLEASE post results here when you get them back . . . in a year or two?

All requests have come up empty. If he is/was/has been still living, then it is my understanding that his records would be still at his home, and not in central archives. Correct me if I'm wrong? 40th anniversary . . . that is scary. Maybe a joint JOMSA piece? If you can stand it.

And even with the document, you can never tell if that one matched with the book. Provenence and trust? Maybe both are in short supply these fading days of Babylon?

Nice one! Maybe, some day, these numbers can be made to speak.

A nice set, Brian. The high-end one is hard to find.

Good one . . . so far

Nice ones, Owain. Sounds like you had fin in Sana'a, but it does have that reputation.

I'm not sure Alexei reads this forum. I know he had subscribed, but the last I knew he had forgotten his password. Better maybe just to send him the scans directly.