Ed_Haynes

Can anyone post a picture of the MEDAL FOR VICTORY OVER JAPAN. I can't seem to find one on the forum. I found one on a dealers site but without a picture.

Cheers

Chris

The Medal "We won" (to use the correct name) is in many places here. See, for example: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10216&st=01

Welcome to Mongolian awards.

And.

When you have to deal with strange foreign awards, you improvise. Look what the Soviets did to British and US awards!

Not wanting to add more fuel to the flames in what is getting a bit "snarly", but three British groups follow. All images small and not great, but the groups aren't mine.

One of the problems with thinking that online sources are in any way "real"?

There is, of course, always the Wayback Machine (are any of you old enough to recall that?).

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

At OMSA: Our fellow forumite E. J. Fischer will have several copies for sale and will have flyers for easy ordering once you've seen the book.

At OMRS: Unknown at present, shall advise.

Aha! You beat me to it Hugh! I was just about done fiddling with the images James had sent to me. Not easy (or, sometiomes, possible) to conjoin size and quality.

Thanks, James, campaign medals to follow.

Please note that I tried to delete Post # 6 (wrong picture), but I haven't figured out how to do that either either. Perhaps a moderator will help out.

Best,

Hugh

Done.

I didn't know that but surely you mean anyone with a European delivery address.

No, it only includes Europeans, no Indian Army (my interest).

This one -- and the ribbon especially -- looks vaguely familiar. I am thinking Southeast Asian. The scan, however, is too bad to say much.

Reminding us, perhaps, that the GPW was not about "things", or people, or even history, it was about families.

For me, these are a sort of shrine to those who defeated fascism.

I have many more. There were many more.

And the interior.

Reverse.

One more.

Example 2

Interior.

Reverse.

Example 1

From a large collection acquired recently, a few examples.

I leave it to the Russian readers to fill in the facts and the context.

iv red banner in the 90 xxx range that converted to screwback and then back to the correct way again!!!

I have always assumed that all those "reconversions" of originally screwbackled items (not what you allude to, I know) were reconversions by "helpful" dealers and coillectors who smelled more profit by doing so. Why in the world would have a veteran have converted his awards back to an obsolete style?

Another victory of greed over history?

The place to start is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website (not perferct, but they try hard):

http://www.cwgc.org/

The problem comes with common names. There are four "Peter Watt"s. And there's no way to know which is which.

There is also the "Soldiers Died" CD, but I don't have it (as it is restricted to Europeans). But witha common name, and no otyher information, the same problems will exist.

Maybe others can help you target.

Good points, Paul.

Gentlemen,

A friend has in his collection a mounted pair of medals:

Order of Civil Merit, 5th class, 1st type, i.e six pointed star.

Order of Devotion - the medal under discussion.

As the Syrian Order of Civil Merit was instituted in 1926 (revised in 1953) and the Order of Devotion instituted as the "Medaille de Devouement" in 1935 & re-charted in 1953, I would suggest that the award under discussion is indeed this Medaille de Devouement as opposed to the later re-constituted Order of Devotion.

Not very enlightening but I hope a reasonable suggestion.

Owain

A good working theory, Owain.

Good to know that there WAS no top brooch fitting, Ed! The only ones I've ever had in my paws have been solo CIVIL issues, which DID have a brooch pinback.

I learn something new (and useful) every day here!

There was at least the theoretical chance that an award of these first, very (too?) freely distributed MBEs would be worn alone for civil awards. Any military recipient would -- it was assumed -- have had somethimng for The Great War to mount with it (hard to avoid!).

From all I have seen, the military awards, which were almost never worn alone, usually came without any upper fitting. Even few civil awards of that period did. The expected early remounting made the upper brooch fitting unnecessary. They could just as easily have discpensed with the ribbon (and I have seen some evidence that this was considered to save money). I 100% suspect this specimen never had any upper fitting. Why destroy history to make it fulfill our strange needs? Finding a period brooch would require ripping apart a period piece, as those pieces issued with it usually had the remelting of the brooch fitting factored into the cost when the remounting took place as a discount.

Again: NOTHING wants "fixing" on this MBE. (Not even as one might "fix" their dog!)

Not quite sure what you are asking? THere is nothing wrong with this. Why spoil it?

Good work, Leigh!