JBFloyd

Breast star of the Order of National Merit, 87mm. This one is gilt, silver and enamel, with the backplate of Medina of Barcelona and Madrid. An beautiful early star of this order.

As the symbols appear on an armillary band on the globe, they probably were meant to represent the major constellations (zodiac), but the die cutter certainly added his own artistic license to the forms, as none match the modern representations of the signs.

Thanks Paul. Not quite the emperor's golf marker, but better than a Go counter.

The badge is a Command at Sea badge.

His WWII Victory, Occupation and National Defense ribbons need to be rearranged.

Any ideas about this one? It's blank on the reverse with a thin horizontal pin.

The Mullen roll shows each of these as correct and notes their pedigree to the Payne Collection.

Monkeying with the clasps was more common on NGS Medals. There was a glut of Syria medals, so many of them were used to hold rarer clasps. That's why you see catalogs today note that "Pierre Cowznofski appears six times on the roll (1 for Trafalgar and 5 for Syria)". Since the ship's name is not on the medal, sometimes only the roll will help sort out who the recipient was.

When Payne was collecting, there was little concern with naming and regiments on medals. On MGS and NGS Medals, collectors were looking for the clasps and it was common for clasps to bepulled off one medal and added to another pendant so the "collection" had the maximum number of available clasps. In this effort, multi-bar medals were stripped.

It's only been in the past 30 years or so that auction catalogs, for example, even listed the medal recipient's name. The catalogs usually just listed "Sjt, KRRC" because nobody cared abiout the recipient and certainly spent little, if any, time researchng his service.

His reference to the regimental medals is a long-time problem. When the medal consists of of a hand-engraved sheet of silver, anyone who can find an engraver can fake those.

There is a small, but active, crowd of Zippo collectors here in the US, mostly centering on Vietnam-era Zippo products. A search of Ebay will turn up quite a variety.

In short, it was created by the OAS for award to those troops who served in the Dominican Republic in 1965. However, the United States, which supplied the vast majority of the forces involved, declined the medal. The OAS decided to destroy the stocks they had, so most were destroyed by burning. However, whoever handled the destruction wasn't too zealous and many (1000s ?) escaped with varying damage (usually the ribbons were gone and some showed fire damage). So, a little reribboning and some planchet cleaning brought back to life the "Medal That Never Was".

#3 - Order of the Precious and Brilliant Golden Grain (different order from the Order of the Golden Grain). Looks to be missing a central pearl.

Captain Robin Edward Jeffreys, DSC, RN, Ret.

DSC, London Gazette 17 May 1918 "for services in the Mediterranean Station." (Lieut, RN)

MID, London Gazette 4 Oct 40 (Directing sea transport)

Commander, Orange Nassau, London Gazette 4 March 1947

Officer, Legion of Honor, not Gazetted

Increments should spelled out in an auction house's conditions of sale.

I stopped bidding in several European auctions when I finally figured out that the high mail bid was the opening bid on the floor, so one bid from the knocked me out of competition.

I get mine from Worldwide Militaria Exchange, in Batavia, IL (630.761.4004)

An often overlooked source for collectors:

"List of Mothers and Widows of American Soldiers, Sailors and Marines entitled to make a Pilgrimage to the War Cemeteries in Europe". House of Representatives, Washington, DC, 1929

I have used it on several occasions to verify units and death dates for WWI local medals to casualties, as this lists the casualties, with unit and the cemetery they were in. Unfortunately, it only lists fatal casualties, not the wounded.

A sidelight to the Russian desire to have back its cultural patrimony is an article in the 16 March issue of "Antiques and The Arts Weekly". I guess it's all a matter of perspective...

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (AP).

The head of Russia's cultural heritage watchdog agency said recently that the country would not hand over an art collection taken out of Germany after World War II for free.

The collection was removed bu Soviet Captain Viktor Baldin and later transferred to Russia's State Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg.

"It was us who preserved and restored it. It means that we should also enjoy some preferences," Boris Boyarskov, head of Rosokhrankultura cultural heritage watchdog, was quoted as telling reporters by the Interfax news agency.

Baldin carried 362 drawings out of Germany in a suitcase and kept them for three years under a bed in his office in the city of Zagorsk, according to Russian news reports. The drawings and paintings included works by such artists as Titian, Rembrandt, Delacroix, van Gogh, Durer and Goya.

In 1948, Baldin, a painting restoration expert by profession, presented the collection to a state museum and, in 1991, it was officially handed over to the Hermitage.

Boyarskov declined to specify the conditions under which the art collection could be returned, saying the issue was still being discussed by Russian and German officials. Russia and Germany have long sparred over the fate of so-called trophy art, thousands of valuable objects taken from Germany in the waning days of World War II.

Germany and other countries have pressed for the return of the collections, which they ague were taken illegally.

A 2000 Russian law distinguished between illegal trophies -- taken without a military commander's sanction -- and those Moscow sees as restitution for the 27 million Soviet lives lost, 100 museums destroyed and the ruin of entire cities during the war."

I believe awards to foreigners are "honorary" and not Gazetted, but there is probably recommendation paperwork somewhere.

Award document for the Bulgarian World War I Commemorative Medal.

The death and wound documents are officially called "Presidential Killed (or Wounded) in Action Certificates", although they are more often referred to as "Columbia accolades" or "Wilson accolades".

In 1993, Planchet Press published "AEF Award Certificates", by Thomas J. Nier. It covers all the various award and recognition certificates down to division level. Long out of print, but worth searching for.

Brian,

Following is a photocopy of a MSCC certificate.

Abbott and Tamplin states 2472 awards to French recipients.

These are reign medals, awarded in gold, silver and bronze grades by the king for "outstanding support" to the throne, the king and the royal family.

Jean Henri Dunant founded the International Red Cross and was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1901. His photo and bio appear at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/l...dunant-bio.html

There is some clarification needed here -

Meritorious Services Citation Certificates (MSCC) do not recognize wounds, but were used to recognize non-combat services not meeting the criteria for a Distinguished Service Medal. Approximately 4200 were awarded. In 1932, when the Purple Heart came out, regulations provided the award of a Purple Heart to any holder of an MSCC. These "meritorious" Purple Hearts are quite scarce.

The last piece on his bar is the French medal of the Societe Francaise de Secours aux Blesses Miitaires for the 18790-1871 war.

The value of this is that it's the first glimmer I've seen that any senator or Congressman has recognized that there are folks out here in taxpayerland who have serious problems with this legislation.

It doesn't suggest there will be a rush to change the law as it stands, but it's a small step in our direction.

We lived under 18USC704 for 80+ years while it carried language just as harsh as the current version. The intent there was also to go after imposters. We should still be working with our local reps to get a legislative fix and this is a handy reference to show that someone has reacted without calling out the hounds to chase anyone down for mailing a National Defense Service Medal.