Ed_Haynes

With the early cap star.

Closeup.

Not, I suspect, what you are after, but they were commonly used in Mongolia, as on this platoon chief.

That's interesting. So the Green & Blue ribbon is the official?

Thanks!

Yes. This ribbon may be some sort of commemorative usage, or another category, though no one in Amman has been able to document anything other than the green/blue. Until I see the official notifications, I tend to take "urban legend" with a very large chunk of salt.

Owain might know more.

A seriously strange bar indeed

I have found three similiar ribbons (that match the GCM) that are equally as farfetched as the GCM.

1) Canada - Royal Canadian Legion - Ladies Auxillary - Past Officer

2) Jordan - Medal in Memory of War 1939-45

3) Republic of Korea - Order of National Security Merit - 3rd Class (missing the taeguk device) - Cheonsu

Honestly I think it might have been made for theatrical or film.

Think you are right about cinematic use, David.

And, by the way, while something like this ribbon is seen on the Jordanian medal, it is NOT the official one and its use cannot be documented.

And there is a third volume too. (The only one I have found on abe.com.)

The books:

GALLOWAY, P., STANLEY, D. & MARTIN, S.

Royal Service, Volume One. The Royal Victorian Order; The Royal Victorian Medal; The Royal Victorian Chain. 1996. xii, 364 pages. 16 plates (10 in colour). Casebound.

The definitive history of the Royal Victorian Order, The Royal Victorian Medal and The Royal Victorian Chain. Tracing the institution and development, the recipients, removals, and the insignia of each.

RISK, J., POWNALL, H., STANLEY, D., TAMPLIN, J.

Royal Service, Volume Two. 2001. 368 pages, illustrated mainly in colour. Casebound.

Continuing the substantive appointments and awards (recorded in Volume I) up to 4 August 2000 and records the honorary appointments to the Royal Victorian Order and honorary awards of the Royal Victorian Medal from 1896 to 2000. It also deals with the Royal Family Orders, Commemorative Medals, Coronation and Jubilee Medals, and Badges of Office.

A delightful pair, by reputation, though I do not have them (I should). Spink has both in stock (whence I have lifted this information), at ?60.00 and ?45.00, respectively. Other standard dealers should have then too.

This is perhaps the most immensely bizarre thing I have seen in 40 years of medal collecting.

My reading would be:

1- Singapore General Service Medal

2- France Croix de Guerre WWI era

3- US Army Good Conduct Medal

4- UK Atlantic Star

This makes NO SENSE AT ALL

There is a roll of honorary (i.e., non-British) members of the Royal Victorian Order in all grades, sorted by the year of award. This class of RVO was passed out to an array of recipients, from railway traffic managers to senior military officers on occasions such as Edward VII's visit to Berlin and various funerals and weddings in Germany and Britain.

Yes, but I don't think the book you allude to keys it to number, does it, Jeff?

George HAD the answer, since he made a private gift (a tinsel breast star of either the Prince Regent/George IV's or the Duke of Wellington's that they wanted, if I remember correctly) to the Royal Collection at Windsor, and in return they PERSONALLY informed him of the recipient of this and the other Royal Victorian Order medal bar he had. Quid pro quo-- even Royal backs can be scratched.

Amazing. I do not know of a SINGLE British medal collector who has been able to get ANY RVO information out of the orders chancery (where these records are kept), though it isn't all that hard to get information from the archives at Windsor Palace or even from the Royal Collection (George VI was a medal collector).

My understanding of the Royal Victorian Order (is it even awarded anymore, now that that bizarre thing with the Navajo blanket ribbon is handed out?) is that the records are NOT "public," since it is a DYNASTIC and not STATE award.

The RVO is certainly still awarded. I am sure Lizzy gave some away to stable boys at Churchill Downs. (Her great-grandfather dropped them on everyone he met, even doormen.) And it has no relationship to the Queen's Service Order (if that is what you are trying to describe, Rick?) which is awarded in New Zealand (only), in Her capacity as Queen of New Zealand.

@ Ed: I have already been told that the orders' chancery in London is not very cooperative in such matters. Maybe there is still somebody among the collecting community who has direct access to their archives. I find it a bit stupid to preclude such info which should be of Public interest. For example the Kriegsarchiv in M?nchen has been very cooperative, efficent and very fast in mailing me photocopies of a Military career of a Bavarian WWI officer; I didn't even have to pay for the shipping costs. I would have gladly paid up to Eur 50.- for such info.

The main difference, Claudio, is that the Kriegsarchiv is an archive and the orders chancery is a working office of government. It is, however, immensely rare for any archive, anywhere, to be willing to do the research FOR the researcher, rather than make available the facilities for them to do their own research. Archivists are usually not willing to serve as research assistants (and I don't blame them). You should be grateful that your Kriegsarchiv is the exception to the norm.

Efforts by generations of British medal collectors to gain access to the RVO records have failed. This is complicated, of course, by the fact that the order is in the personal gift of the sovereign. But other royal records from Windsor have been available. But the orders chancery folks are very stereotypic bureaucrats, though they are right that doing research for others is not their job; they are, however, not willing to make these records available for people to do their own work (they claim their offices are very cramped). Very frustrating, but that's the way it is, and as with many things in the UK there's no sign of change any time soon.

I guess so, Dave, I guess so. Not being one of the normal clasps, though, it is an interesting invention.

Not a CVO (which is a neck badge), but a MVO (4th class, LVO since 1984) breast badge. (I am amazed how much problem British multi-classed orders seem to present, even for folks to whom a CVxZr4mS is bread and butter.)

In case you are interested, current "book value" on a MVO (4th) is in the ?300-350 range.

Now the bad news. While rolls for the RVO numbers almost surely exist in the orders chancery in London, they are unavailable. Decades of asking have produced the same answer: We are a working office and do not exist to do research for medal collectors.

Still, a nice group.

The "Iraq" clasp would suggest he was, obviously. in Iraq, though not in the Kut operations (for which there is a separate clasp). What clasp (if any) covered operations in Palestine is unclear. Likewise, there seems to have been no clasp for the Caucasus front, some of the nastiest operations the Ottomans faced.

Antonio's links won't work, as it is impossible to go directly to (or link to) his pages. In this age of overly free information "harvesting", this strikes me as a good idea.

Go to

http://www.coleccionesmilitares.com/cintas/cintasam.htm#e

and click on his three Ecuador pages.

Once you learn this trick to using his fine site, you will find wonders there.

A nice thread, a bit chaotic for me to sort out, but worth the extra effort (too mant images per post and too little text per post). I might add a few too.

An afterthought:

All this being the case, it is a bit strange that he got the "Iraq" clasp to the HM rather than the "Canal" clasp. I guess it is a matter of where he was when, or how the Ottomans drew their lines of qualification for the clasps (that were, in any event, post-war). But service in Palestine as "Iraq"???

What we really do NOT know, is the Ottoman side of the war. I have friends who are trying, though the language skills and patience with chaotic Ottoman archives required are stupendous.

The story that Rick tells is pretty much what is said from the other (victorious) side. I have looked at a number of the war diaries from this theatre, and I have gotten the sense that they were simply moving too fast (and having too much fun winning -- for a change) to care very much about who the opposition was (or used to be). The sense that things fell apart on the Ottoman-German side is very much the tone of the British and Indian war diaries.

The Arabs, of course, were far more honest about how they dealt with the eshik Turk ("donkey Turks") and their friends. A very "gentlemanly" war, but by very different rules. Was was, after all, then as now, a sport where you'd better expect to get your القضيب cut off.

Thanks, Rick!!

And the (nice) singleton:

Aleksandr Ivanovich Koldunov

Pavel Alexandrovitch Kashurets

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=18403

Two new groups and one new singleton.

Ivan Sergeyevich Gladun

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=18405

Very cool! I always feel good when I see this happen. Interesting he mounted the Messina medal backwards! Perhaps he wanted no mistakes as to what it was!!

No, it is my understanding that, as the "friendliness" of Italy came to be called into question, you'd mount it so the king couldn't see out.

Thanks, Rick!

I am not sure how good it is (we all know the limitations of online translation), but the new Google site seems better than the usual gibberish, and it does both Chinese Chinese and Taiwanese Chinese.

http://www.google.com/language_tools