Ed_Haynes

Close-up on some of the goodies.

OK . . . finally . . . some medals. A frame I don't think you have seen before.

The interior of the bar, though with a different cricket match on.

And Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner.

Maharaja Bhupendra Singh of Patiala, famous collector of medals (both personal and as a collector -- and infamous collector of women too).

The other wall, with a much more phaleristically fun couple: Bhupendra and Ganga.

A few more photos, as I am in a good place to take them

The entry area -- a not-so-fun couple named George and Mary.

An interesting group, to be sure, and quite plausible. Such things do occasionally surface, but are not easy to explain. My guess -- and it is no more than that -- is that this was a duplicate wearing group, purchased at cost from the mint.

Value? I'm not much good at this. Unnamed state will detract substantially, though if there is an asserted provenance that will help, but only a little. I'd think in terms of 70% or 75% of the Medals Yearbook value. As I am away from my sources now, sorry I can't look them up. Maybe someone else could.

The only one I have is up at

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=4129&st=2

A wonderful (though depressing and slightly spooky) tale, well-told. Not my sort of "thing", but it isn't about "things" it is about "history". And as history, A+!

Ed - Did you find the book? If so what do you think of it? Kevin

The various books mentioned here (that I didn't have) are on their way. My request for airmail shipping often gets downgraded to slower post. So I should live so long.

Nice!!

I know of one Indian Sates Forces badge with cobras on, but no Brit. or colonial ones . . . .

Mysore and Travancore, which used snake in their (THEIR, not the Brit-invented) heraldry, wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like this.

I am never carelessly "glib." Concise as opposed to epically OFF "Silesian Eagles" topic, sure. And this IS my field (German personnel/family/career research). I've been at this for 30 years, and I learned personally at the knee of the greatest analyst of them all, the late Harold Gordon who KNEW and interviewed these guys.

Urban thugs in their early 20s gleefully smashing windows in the Great Depression were not FREIKORPS members. Iconic "brawlers" like Horst Wessel-- the ACTUAL punch up demographic-- were CHILDREN in 1919-20.

Your "average" Freikorps member in 1919 was one of the following:

a career soldier (commissioned or enlisted) concerned for his country and not content to polish shoes and practice pre-war squad drills while his country fell apart beyond the barracks gates;

a very young soldier who felt guilty at not having done his 'share" during the war eager to "prove" himself;

an unemployed family man unable to get any paying job in the mass demobilization of 1918-19;

a local faced with immediate, personal "my street" consequences that could not be avoided.

Psychopaths, perverts, and anti-Semites were a very distinct minority and I have never seen any statistical evidence of ANY greater concentration of same within the Freikorps as a whole than among the German male population in general.

Good summary. Thanks. Has any of this ever appeared, researched, documented, and in print? (Asked as a professional academic historian.) I'd like to see it.

How would you distinguish these boys from those who went on the other team, with the communists? Those who'd later get this:

There are restrikes of these out there. one guy sells them on ebay with I believe a GRACO marking.

Yes, there are restrikes, fakes, etc. of these. What I was trying to say is that only these were awarded as contemporaneous medals and -- as Darrell remarked -- in specimens where we can distinguish between more- and less-real medals. This is especially the case with the Mariner's Medal, where I've been told there are some especially nasty fakes about.

One thing all my years of research has turned up is that members of the Freikorps were NOT a solid block of proto-fascists and--contrary to one notoriously 180?-off book a generation ago--"The Vanguard of Nazism." What I have found is that the senior officers and generals who were most likely as a group to oppose wartime Nazi policies WERE ex-Freikorps members. Free THINKERS not freebooters-- men who thought for themselves.

An interesting historical interpretation, Rick. Not one I have come across. And one on which I -- for one -- would appreciate some footnotes. Most of the serious historical research I have seen on this topic -- and I have to admit it is far outside my field, where I have a hard enough time staying up to date -- holds that there was a close ancestral/parental relationship between the freicorps people and the various street-fighting thug groups that later evolved into things like the SA and SS. The argument that they formed a proto-Nazi cadre of anti-communists and anti-Semites cannot, I think, be as easily and glibly dismissed as you seem to be doing here. Your distinction between naval and military responses is dead on target, however, and is worth remembering.

Hi Hendrik. Do you have a closeup picture of Obverse and Reverse of each of the above medals? Can I ask where you got them? Thanks.

There are many fakes/restrikes of all merchant marine medals about. As most of the medals were authorised long after the original ribbon-only awards were approved, most of them are "after market" medals anyway. Like French awards, and as with most unnamed unnumbered stuff, you are awarded a medal, now trot out and buy it yourself. This opens up a very gray area as to what is legitimate and what isn't, what is original and what is a fake. Only with the Mariner's Medal and the distinguished service medal are these distinctions clear.

The snake clasp belts are commonly available in Canada, (and I suspect India, Australia, Bermuda...) .

You see them ALL THE TIME in India.

The snake has crawled everywhere.

Yes, displayed makes a great impression. I only have one case for "rotating displays" and everything else is tucked away (and sometimes forgotten) in storage...

so the only display I have is SCANS.

Same for me!

Fascinating tale and intriguing theory on temporary documents.

This is all very useful -- though very disturbing. Much to ponder . . .

Very nice! The problem, of course, is that most of the WWII (= affordable) medals were issued unnamed, and only in places like South Africa, Australia, and India (though not Pakistan) do you have much hope of research with named medals. Despite what some have written, they were unnamed not because of cost but due to a desire to get them issued quickly. If people just researched before they wrote . . . sigh . . . .

Enough for now, more as I have time.

A few groups want re-scanning . . . .

Order of the Red Banner of Labor, type 1, var. 2

#938

Undocumented, unresearched, unresearchable

But I like it anyway

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1830&st=5

Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic - Order of the Red Banner of Labor, type 2

I. Kh. Altynbaev

#301, awarded in November 1931 to I. Kh. Altynbaev, Chief of Police Criminial Investigations Department. He was one of only two individuals to receive the order twice (#139 October 1929 and #301 November 1931 - he was the first to get it twice).

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2548