JBFloyd

He's not on the roll for a federal Mexican Border Service Medal.  These medals came out a the US was gearing up to send much of the National Guard to France, so many veterans never heard about them.

Ohio had it's own Mexican Border Service Medal, so he may have acquired one of those. They were unnamed and unnumbered.

226 Lance Sergeant E. L. Andrews, 2/11th Regt.

I'd guess that the gilt badge is either for a consul-general or perhaps someone in the diplomatic chain.

After some back and forth with the Embassy of Monaco here in the US, the Ambassador has confirmed that this is the badge given to Consuls of Monaco. The Ambassador is herself a past consul and consul-general.

There are very few published sources on Nicaraguan awards. However, one light in the darkness is a book published in 2002 by Luis H. Flores called"Nicaragua: It's Coins, Paper Money, Medals, Tokens".  The section on medals (which also covers military insignia) runs just over 100 pages and illustrates many of the awards from the Daniel Ortega period. This is the only place I've ever seen these Ortega-era awards.  It's a very hard book to find, but might be available through numismatic book dealers.

Nicaragua. Ministry of the Interior Distinguished Service Medal. Comes in three classes - gold, silver and bronze.

OK, not exactly French, but close.

This badge came to me identified as the badge of an ambassador of Monaco.  I've seen a similar badge, but silver-gilt, also without a solid identification.

Does anyone know what it actually is?  It measures 61x44mm.

Many thanks, Frank.  That clears it up.

The text is not the problem. The problem is who issued it and why?

Jeremy Tenniswood Militaria often has Bahawalpur ribbons available on his web site.  I haven't looked in a while, however.

Thank you, Paja, for having a memory far better than mine.

I cannot find this in my Greek sources.  What is it?

Thank you for the information.

The reverse is blank.

The marriage possibility is certainly viable. This came out a very large estate collection, so there's no way to go back through the previous collector.

Thank you both for the input.  It's been most helpful.

It would certainly make sense that the decisions bringing about the flag change would also be reflected in the design of orders.

This came to me described as the star of the Libyan Order of Good Workmanship.  However, all the images I can find of this order show the center enameled areas to be in green, rather than red and black.  The center inscription is appropriate and it's marked by Bomisa.

Is this an earlier type?  A trial piece?  Something else entirely?

Many thanks for the link.  I'm not sure I ever would have found that and it makes my task so much easier.

Regards,

Jeff Floyd

Many thanks for that.  I'm now light years ahead of my complete ignorance.

The Army Catering Corps was established in 1941, so that's not the source. If you Google "Association of Conservative Clubs", you'll find images of this type of medal.

General Sir Charles J. Napier left India in 1851, so your Napier is probably a relative.

By the way, Napier's "message" may never have existed in reality, and may have been invented later for drama, but it goes to my point of the uses of a classical education.

Perhaps the missing words are "strong enough".

The use of Latin and Greek in British military messages goes back a long way. Probably the best known is Napier's message of "Peccavi" (I have sinned [Scinde]). The Royal Navy seemed to lean toward biblical passages. If intercepted by an enemy, such usage veils the meaning somewhat to those without a classical education and adds a bit of fun in writing otherwise boring message traffic.

It looks like the writer is substituting Greek letters from some Latin letters.  With a little work, it should all come clear, but here's a very rough guess at the latter part:

Wilson is not  -----  ------ to attack the city (?), but 'e will keep his position till 'elp arrives, and he will prevent...

Can anyone give any information on these two Chinese badges. They are both roughly 49x45mm. The dark area at the top is actually a bird of prey with black feathers. The reverses have the remains of a vertical pin.  

And another badge from the same source (48mm, with the remains of a horizontal pin).

This 6-shot revolver came with the estate of a US Army veteran who served in Europe. His family thought it was a bring-back from WWII.  It has no visible serial numbers or any other marks other than the maker's mark on the grip discs (stylized M superimposed over an F). The barrel length is about 56mm.  This is so far out of my areas of interest that I'm at a complete loss.

Can anyone give me any information on this pistol?

The other side.