Ed_Haynes

B 45 -- Sukhbaatar To complete "the set".

H NIB 08 -- Mongolian Flag Has a very "modern" feel to it. "Post-Socialist"?

H NIB 07 -- Mongolian Flag

H 29 -- Socialist Friendship Personally, I especially like the design here! I guess this could be seen as a category "I" badge too??

H 28 -- Soviet Union-Mongolia Also shown by Battushig as I 03.

H NIB 06 -- Soyombo A variant ("mule"?) of H 27.

H 27 -- Soyombo

H 25 -- 40 Years of the MPR

H 22 -- Soyombo

H 10 -- Mongolia

Quite a group! Both OPW and MM. You tease us, Dave, with goodies from your forthcoming JOMSA piece. Can't wait!!

You need to work on your photo ID skills, mate!

Marvelous information, Sam. Thank you, mate!!

Here's a nice MC group coming up at the next DNW auction (lot 90), to Lieutenant-Colonel J. W. Malcolm, Royal Army Medical Corps. Estimate? ?2000-2500. More mundane MC groups in the ?600 range (but one very nice two-bar WWI MC group).

I might add to this a reference to the excellent article by Owain Raw-Rees, "Palestinian Awards," Journal of the Orders and Medals Society of America 55, 3 (May-June 2004): 2-12. While the journal got a load of flak for publishing this, this is first-rate work, and a good compilation of all we know to date on the awards of Palestine.

Yes, looks pre-WWI. Nepali-made, of course. Weren't they all, pre-1947? I know some of the post-1947 ones are made in India, but not all. Cant' say how those unfortunates that remained in British service get theirs. Very similar to many that I saw in the National Museum (in Kathmandu). Somewhere, I may have some pictures.

Thanks, Gilbert. Abbot and Tamplin (more reliable than MYB) show: WWI - Services in the Field: MC - 37,081 1st bar - 2,983 2nd bar - 168 3rd bar - 4 WWI - Services in Connection with the War: MC - 23 1st bar - 1 2nd bar - 1 1920-39: MC - 349 1st bar - 31 WWII: MC - 10,386 1st bar - 482 2nd bar - 24 1947-79: MC - 643 1st bar - 20 I don't have readily available the post-1979 awards, but darn few.

They were much more common in WWI than in WWII. Someplace (at home, I am now at work), I have the comparative numbers. Anyone care to drag out Abbot and Tamplin and answer this?

Nevertheless, these things might actually exist somewhere as more than drawings on a website (though many such fantasy awards do not), and might pop up some day to confuse people. For this reason, collecting informtion on them is valuable, just so long as we don't get misled about what they are and what they are not.

I can't say for certain about this one, but being a friend of the "ruling" family and demonstrating that friendship financially usually would help.

There's more than a little bit of fantasy in the air here. Another one of these "pretender" states that exists with great historical certainty in the mind of the "head of the dynasty", but in the minds of no one else. Interesting psychology and sociology, minimal phaleristics or history.

Good one, Gerd. I vaguely remember that this theory had also been advanced in of of those JOMSA articles on Patton's awards, maybe with some evidence. It would then raise the interesting (though soon made moot by the politics of the "Cold War") as to whether all soldiers of the 3rd Army could wear guards' badges or just their commander? Need to dig through my back issues of the JOMSA. At present, their organization is limited.

Naming for the 2nd Afghan War Medal is probably the most variable of any Victorian gong. I am convinced (concerning myself only with medals to Indians) that there is some underlying pattern, but I am clueless what it might be. I do know that the large number of medals required broke the habitual pattern of outsourcing medasls from the Calcutta Mint to a single firm for naming, and a bundle of additional contracts had to be issued and that regiments were encouraged to name things themselves. What lovely chaos!

Yes, a group like the one Jackly posted is pretty, but as it is most likely entirely unnamed it will have 0% research potential and will carry have a nagging doubt as to whether it is legitimate or fraudulently assembled. Go for a nice WWI MC group (actually cheaper than a similar WWII group!). And go to a professional dealer.

Far, FAR from anything I know much about, but it looks pre-WWII to me, probably WWI (if I had to GUESS).