Ed_Haynes

Can part of the problem be our focus on (= bias toward) "things military"? Linked to this is the general denigration of any civil awards. The HSU was not, and was never intended to be, a uniquely military award. While many of these non-combat HSUs may have been more important to the USSR than the military acts that won it, we tend to treat them with disrespect. True, if you want "all military, all the time", stick to the Order of Glory (or watch the History Channel on TV).

Maybe Bob is right.

Maybe the "hype" is over?

Maybe everyone has lost interest in Mongolian awards?

The absolute, reverberating, deafening silence on this forum would suggest that.

That's OK. To make space, just send all those "de-hyped", now-uninteresting, Mongolian doo-dads to me. They will find a loving home.

Plus, my grandfather almost got dragged off to the Spanish-American War. He had gotten his call-up papers, but then it was over. Close call.

Same with my father who was scheduled to go off on a LST for the North Africa landings. Then they discovered his was so color-blind he couldn't stand deck duty, and he got replaced (and off to ammunition depots); the guy who replaced him was killed when the LST was hit by a Stuka while ferrying prisoners of war out of Sicily. Another close call.

I added this to the post, Dan, and you must have missed it:

See http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3975&st=01 for those.

Nice. The only (US) Civil War items I have are my great-grandfather's two medals. See http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3975&st=01 for those. My father had tons of Civil War stuff he dug up and out or trees as a kid, but I have no idea where that is now. Another great-grandfather's 14th Virginia Cavalry lieutennt's uniform was burned years ago by aunts who were disturbed that it "might get moths" - grrrrr.

Here's my Soviet collection. Currently "in transit", pending new quarters once we reclaim square feet from our just-departed-to-college daughter.

(Hope my wife didn't see that . . . .)

Gaudy? As compared to what? Design standards died along about 1919.

Case in point: the new US Army Sea Service Ribbon.

This is not a joke (well, it is, but it isn't).

OK, all of us have been seeking a way to scan naming of commonwealth medals. My latest experiment. Inspired, believe it or not, by the departure of the youngest for college.

1- Take that sticky clay-like goo that one uses to stick posters on dormitory walls so you don't get charged thousands of dollars for sticking pins in the walls.

2- Make a nice flat surface in the goo.

3- Roll (carefully -- more carefully than I did in my test here) the named edge of your medal in that flat surface. (And, in this test, I only did part of the naming.)

4- Scan that impression (trying not to get the goo stuck to the scanner glass).

5- Mirror the scan, convert to black and white (unless you want a nice coloured scan -- in this case, electric blue) and adjust and fiddle the contrast (and I could have done much more than I have).

If you used wax I bet it would be better!

A test -- (Indian) Special Service Medal, clasp "Suraksha", named: 7237642 L/DFDR SM SHAMIM R V C

And you see:

Add to this the fact that, as I understand the law, veterans (or families of veterans) who sold their (or their ancestor's) medals have done so in violation of the law.

And, so, are we then accessories to criminal action? Receiving stolen goods after they pass through a "fence" or two does little to excuse the crime. Stolen goods are still stolen goods?

In part, this explains the fact that most Soviet awards that you could find in the late 1970s, had the serial numbers carefully obliterated. Done to disguise the implicit crime?

Previous threads like this have been closed down, though, so . . .

This was pretty well addressed, I think, in the sibling posting: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10348

Acting Lance Dafadar Sadhu Singh, ASC (AT)

While it includes post-1947 items, it may be of interest here anyway? All properly named, of course.

Havildar Nand Singh, 15th Punjab Regiment

All properly named.

I shall henceforth ignore this thread. Thank you.

this is the blue monster, isn't id Ed

The Ordre National du M?rite

The same!

The blue monster?

The National Order of Merit -- I am told (grin) that a very nice book will soon be among us on this fascinating order.

Quite lovely, thanks, Guy. I may be one of the few to mourn the passing of most of these awards and their amalgamation in the Blue Monster.

Very nice. Though I must say I wish people would post images on the forum, rarther than on some image hosting service that is very slow and usually tries to infect any computer that goes there with spyware.

Darrell - sent PM - would advise avoiding e Bay on these, though most good dealers will have a few. Still quite rare on the market. Give it a few years, by which time everyone will have gotten one and we're into the second generation (like the "Northern Ireland" clasp).

The goatlike creature is not a cap badge?

Yes, it is. I have/had one once but can't put my hands on it right now. It is for the Kukoram Scouts (I think) one of the North West Frontier units raised by the british and maintained by Pakistan to patrol the border with Afghanistan.

More to follow.

Peter

Thanks, Peter, I had a vague and distant memory along the same lines. But, these days, I can no longer trust all these vague and distant memories.

In any case, the goat clearly has NOTHING to do with the medal.

Thanks for this thread!

I might add that there was supposed to have been a Hindi version of the UN Korea medal, for the Indian troops that served there. That service was so controversial, that the manufacture of the medal was stopped and receipt of the medal disallowed (though some bad boys wore the ribbon). Efforts are now underway to produce the medal and award it, long after the service, to the survivors or next-of-kin of the 60th Para Field Ambulance Unit (not the NNRC people, who would not have earned this medal anyway).

Let me dig out and post some imaged of medals that are shown here only in scans from books . . . .

Serbia, for the Albanian Campaign, the retreat to Albania 1915.

See: http://www.omsa.org/photopost/showphoto.ph...big&cat=627

Cross reference: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10216&st=1

A more normal view of this lovely medal . . . .

Thanks for these. As for almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, we know so little, need to know so much!

And a fourth award, # 3. I really have my fingers crossed over the future research possibilities of this one.