Kvart

Nice lot Any guess on what his medals would have been?

Nice collection Was it possible to be awarded the Lappland Cross but not the Winter War medal?

If I was to make a guess, I would say it is not British. If British, there are too many foreign ribbons compared to the one single British ribbon. It can of course be, but I think it is unlikely any British subject would be awarded 2-3 low ranking foreign campaign medals, and only qualify for the BWM on the home nationality front. So I would guess it is Belgian. I'm not quite sure what order Belgian (campaign) medals are worn in, I have seen many variants. This ribbon bar could be part two of two ribbon bars. Part one could contain some Belgian orders, CdG, Victory medal and so on. And this part two contains the lower ranking Belgian medals and foreign medals. In my own collection I have this group with volunteer medal, Victory medal, WW1 medal and Congo star. But I will never know if this guy was in Congo during WW1 or only after.

I like this group. The medals for 12 and 4 years of service, together with the Norwegian Order of St. Olav, knight/chevalier with swords (military class), version 1906-1937.

My money is on the Volunteer Combatants Medal (Belgium) too. Or the Belgian Congo Service Star. But why no Victory medal?

The Norwegian medal could have been awarded during state visits from head of states, yes. But I'm not so sure about this medal in this actual group. King Haakon of Norway recieved state visit from Finland 6-8 October 1926, and went to Finland 2-4 June 1928. Which is after the year it is generelly belived this medal was no longer awarded. But there might be other visits, of far less formal character.

No, not available for the public. There might be something in the royal archives, but not so easy to get access there.

Samlerhuset is known for producing modern crap and trying to sell it as something to collect. There are many stories about elderly people starting a subscription on silver commemorative collectable coins monthly from Samlerhuset, each coin bought for anything up to GBP 100. After a while the elderly people will try to sell their "amazing" collection, thinking it has been a good investment. In one case a guy was hoping to get more than GBP 8 000, which was about what he paid. However, the true value was onle the silver melting price, which was about 10-20 % of what this poor guy paid.

Christiania is correct about the Norwegian medal. The royal commemorative medal in silver without crown was awarded from 1906 to about 1917, as a sort of 3rd and lowest class of the royal commemorative medals. It is quite rare.

No, you don't want to know that Some years ago I found a box at a fair with many hundred cards like this, with a medal, badge or miniature medal stapled to each card. It was the leftovers from Tostrup's archive. Behind the post it-note there are dates and amount of medals delivered from Tostrup at each date. It would have been a perfect source for putting together a catalog of Tostrups production, and so far to my knowledge, the only way to propper ID all the different medals. However all the official and more expensive medal cards were long gone from the box. All cards are numbered, this is card 799. Quite a lot of the cards were missing. And the dealer's price was not of this world. There was no way I could buy the incomplete remains of the archive. But some other dealers did and cards are indivdual sold at different Norwegian auction sites now. The prices are still ridiculous and it seems impossible to put them back together again

This might be a long shot, but I will give it a try. Is it possible to come up with a list of foreign, that is Norwegian, recipients of the Belgian Order of Leopold II officer's grade? For quite a long time I have been pondering this goup sold at an online auction site some years ago. The text stated it was awarded to a major who was in charge of the Norwegian contigent in UNEF, and thus was awarded the Belgian and Italian orders. I don't think we can rely too much on this information, from what I can see neither Belgium or Italy sent soldiers to the UNEF. But this guy has been in the Norwegian armed forces for more than 35 years, his name will appear in the Norwegian state calenders. But so does thousands of other names, I was hoping to make a shortlist based on the Belgian or Italian orders. The medals are: 1) Norwegian Armed forces medal, for 25 years of service, pluss 5 + 5 years of additional service (stars) 2) Norwegian Army service medal, for completing one year as conscript, pluss 4 + 4 years of service (stars) 3) Belgian Order of Leopold II, officer 4) Italian Order of merit, officer 5) UNEF 6) Norwegian civilian athlete's medal So what do you guys think, is it possible to put together such a list of recipients of the Belgian order? Where could I go to try to make such a list?

Yes, Tostrup was a Norwegian firm making a lot of medals and orders, until it went bankrupt in 1993. I do not know this medal, as it is a private, unofficial medal. It is most likely related to a choir, music orchestra, a guild of traders, merchants, artisans or something like that. Maybe a medal of merit for them. I'm afraid I cannot be of any more help, since there are several houndred Norwegian medals like this, and hardly anyone are fully identified. But it is a nice and well made medal.

All awards of the Swedish Orders can be found here, but it is quite a job to go though all the pages online: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/?postid=Arkis+a7f7e2b3-c93b-4271-b24b-e4a4d3f26003&s=Balder

Here is my cross, one fo the very first commander's crosses I ever got in my collection many years ago. I have never been able to part with it. It has a similiar ring as yours.

Here is the silver medal together with bronze medal. In total 1252 silver medals were awarded and 640 in bronze.

The crowned H7 device is for the ribbon for the Norwegian king Haakon VII Freedom cross.

A painting of Kristian Rikardsen Loken (1884-1961), wearing a Norwegian captain's uniform, while he was commander of the Army Acadamy in 1932-33. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Løken

Do you wanna ID the guy or his decorations? The Order of St. Olav looks quite large, compared to other medals. It might be the commander grade, and should be worn around the neck. Also looks like a post 1906, but pre 1937, version.

You could try www.wwmeinc.com for devices. If you are a member of OMSA, you can buy some ribbons from their ribbon bank.

From another Swedish auction site, the medal group of Dr. Bo von Garrelts.

Am I the only one that can't see the photo?

I see. It is a good project you have there. I look forward to the outcome of it Harald Hallberg's book "Norwegian decorations - awarded with ribbon to be worn on uniform or civilian clothings": http://medals.no/index.html It is a book from 2012 dealing with almost all Norwegian orders, decorations and medals to that time. It is pretty good, although some shortcuts had to me made during the production of the book. The language is mainly Norwegian, but some short summaries and headlines are in English. I'm planning to write a book about Norwegian ODM myself, in English. A lot has happend the last few decades or so. But due to other projects in life and at work, I won't have time to really start this until after 2019.

I'm glad to help. May I ask the reason for your inquires, as this is a very narrow field in the world of phaleristics? Tostrup went out of business in 1992. David-Andersen then became the official supplier of the Order of St. Olav. However, these were still produced in Tostrup's old workshop, and stamped Tostrup, cf. Hallberg p. 29. In 2011 Opro became the new official supplier of this order and the insignias are supposed to be stamped Opro. But I have not seen this stamp myself yet. The awards of St. Olav have been greatly declining the last years. Only a handfull every year, and maybe no grand cross during that year. The last years several of the awarded commander crosses have been in gold, a version that to my knowledge has not been produced since 1958. So I think there is a huge degree of reuse. Thus little need for new produced insignias. Some Orders of Merit are stamped David-Andersen on the reverse. If you give me some time, I should be able to find a picture of this stamp. Oh, the royal mint also produced some Norwegian medals until the late 1990-ies: - Den kongelige mynt (Norge) But the mint was privatized in 2003 and sold to a company (Samlerhuset AS ("The collector's house Ltd")) which use it as a factory for mass production of so called "collector's items". Like commemorative silver coins, sold for 100 times their real value in silver and so on. They are utterly crap and Samlerhuset AS should not be taken serious in any matter. After 2003 the mint has never produced any official ODM and I doubt they ever will.

I like this group a lot! Military service in Belgian Congo during WW2, I would say. But no star on the WW2 medal with yellow ribbon. So not an officer? But still knight of the Lion and the Crown? I thought NCOs mostly got medals.

Very nice groups