JBFloyd

Is anyone out there conversant enough with Polish ranks and units to translate the following entries on Polish Long Service Medal documents: 1. Robotnikowi fizycznemu ze Skladynicy Mat. Int. Nr. 13 w Bialymstokn 2. Pracownikowi kontraktowemu w Polskim Monopolu Tytoniowym While I can wade through several languages, this one eludes me entirely. Thanks, Jeff Floyd

The Military Medal of Merit in silver on the war ribbon.

There are some excellent examples of the higher grades of the Redeemer in the Morton & Eden sale next week (www.mortonandeden.com). The order was founded in 1833, and comes in five classes. Until 1915, it was the only Greek order and went to civil and military officials. Since World War II, it is only awarded to heads of state. The face of Christ on the badges is hand-painted, resulting in a tremendous variety of representations. Since the order has been made by a number of manufacturers, this adds to the varieties. The Hellenic Numismatic Society published a book by Panos Tazedakis "The Order of the Redeemer" (1994), which has superb color photographs of Redeemer insignia.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark (born Mary Elizabeith Donaldson) shown in this official portrait wearing the Order of the Elephant star, sash and badge.

I don't know the protocol of wearing the star only in Denmark. The prince is wearing no sashes but two stars, so I assume that the occasion is less formal than one requiring sash and star. The princess is Australian by birth, as I recall, so they may just be happy she's not in bush gear.

Or, since the Elephant Order sash is sky blue, the Crown Princess is wearing the star only.

It's from the state of Johore -- Sultan Ibrahim's Medal, which came in gold, silver and bronze classes. Unfortuntaely, I find any criteria for the award.

A translation would still require permission of the copyright holder, who would maintain rights to control derivitive works. You would have to make substantive changes to get around that, it which point it would no longer be a translation of H&S, but a new work. If Kleitmann owned sole copyright to H&S, that would pass to his heirs. Under US copyright law, works published between 1922 and 1963 (as was H&S) were copyrighted for 28 years from the date of publication. If the copyright was renewed, the term extended for an additional 67 years. To determine the precise status of the copyright would require some work in Germany to see it the original was ever extended. All of this is why Military & Naval Press never bothered with checking. With all of that said, I'm still a book person. It's far easier to use a book, where you can flip among multiple pages; don't have to have a power source; etc. I have a hundred or so US WWI unit histories on CD, and I use none of them regularly (at most, maybe 2-3/year). CDs work better for searchable data.

The ANS is selling its non-US medal collection to fund its acquisition of items more central to their core interests. The board accepted proposlas from a number of US and overseas auction houses, but chose to go with Morton & Eden. They chose not to liquidate their US collection. I don't know what sealed that decision, but it may have been the discovery that they could not sell their Medals of Honor. At one point, they thought they could get a waiver to Title 18, Section 704, to sell them. It would be interesting to see what a Civil War Medal of Honor to a sailor aboard USS Kearsarge would bring in the open market. Or some Davis Guard Medals. We may never know.

Morton & Eden is selling the foreign awards from the collection of the American Numismatic Society, in New York. This is a collection put together about 80 years ago and has a remarkable range of material. This is part 1 of a 2-part sale, I believe.

Yep, that's the guy! It's always interesting to see "hard to get medal" in the description when the seller is having them made.

The NASA medals are part of the array of US civilian awards, but in contrast to many of the "Distinguished Papershuffling Medals" of other agencies, NASA awards are generally well earned, whether by shuttle crews or ground personnel. I talked to one the Exceptional Engineering recipients about his contributions to the program. I understood the words, but the concept was well beyond this poor old history major! The Space Medal of Honor was treated, oddly enough, better than the military Medals of Honor by Lordship. HLP refused to sell any out the back door in spite of numerous requests by their regular clientele. And a warning to all: there are currently fakes of the first type NASA DSM and earlier NACA medals being pushed from West Virginia. They look good.

Someone made a real effort to convert a knight's badge into a merit cross by removing the enamel on the arms. Or perhaps someone tried to upgrade the merit cross and made a hash of the enamel. The ribbon color should match the enamel color on this order, so the green ribbon is appropriate in this case. Officially, the ribbon/enamel colors reflect the nature of the services rewarded (I've never had one of the types with two-color ribbons, so I'm unsure of their enamel colors): Military merit: dark red Humanitarian acts: red and white Good conduct: blue Continuous service: white and blue Special services: green Other services: white I've never seen any definition of what consitutes the various categories. In my experience, the blue ribbon seems most common, followed by green and red. I have a white-ribboned piece to a US Army officer who served as an attache in Havana in the 1930s.

I'll do grafitti for free, with about as much skill as this artist (and without the bricks).

Apparently related to the Showa Enthronement. This is the highest of three grades of badge -- the intermediate official's badges have no enamel and the basic badge has only the crests and kanji (without the ho-o birds). What qualified as a "senior" official is undefined in any source I can find, but you can bet it was an officer of the household with rank equivalent to a general officer. (Or, maybe it was the drum major in the Love Parade).

A Japanese Senior Enthronement Official?s Badge. This is in silver, with enameled birds and details on the obverse. Marked ?I. Sato? and ?999S? on the reverse.

The ephemeral Order of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, commander. This order is given by Prince Guillermo de Gran Montezuma, who claims descent from the Aztec ruler?s daughter and a Spanish conquistador.

The Guatemalan Cross of Military Merit, third class.

Badge of the Cuban Order of Agricultural and Industrial Merit. Unfortunately, it's without a ribbon.

And a commander's badge, Queen Margareth cypher.

I've had several medal groups over time to men who were employees of various telephone companies before the war. Most of them wound up in specialized signal companies working at the corps or army level. Better yet, most of them seemed to be written up in the telephone companies' newsletters/histories back home (In one case, my guy had a full page bio and photo in the newsletter). Now it's a matter of tracking down what Pacific Telephone Company morphed into over the years and finding a source for their "Pacific Telephone Magazine".

Both Jerry Lewis and Groucho Marx held the commander's grade. Jerry Lewis also held the Legion d'Honneur. make of that what you will.

An early WWII strike under an Army contract. The numbering on this medal is a manufacturer's control step to ensure that the required number of pieces were made and delivered. A contract might be given to strike 10,000 medals, with the precise number range specified in the contract (e.g., 100001-110000). The Army often recorded the numbers on decorations in General Orders in early WWII, but very quickly discovered that to do so would be an administrative nightmare, so they stopped. The Navy never had their numbered, so that problem didn't arise.

1. Manchukuo Order of the Auspicious Clouds 6. Showa Enthronemeny Commemortive 7. Manchukuo Border Incident War Medal

A good administrator would have had the package prepared for the appropriate signatures and done a "Radar O'Reilly". Perhaps he was someone who believed that he was doing what was required of him and that the baubles that we collectors chase were not of interest to him. It could happen.