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All four medals of first type have identical ribbon. Here it is

Awarding criterion This medal could be awarded to servicemen of the Armed Forces for merit displayed during wartime/peacetime or exhibiting unique expertise in some area/academic accomplishments. To be more specific servicemen who have accomplished one of the following incidents could be awarded with Medal of Armed Forces (or Certificate of Appreciation of the Armed Forces, or Armed Forces Branches Medal) Fighting bravery in a battle, and having an achievement Performing a special military mission and having an achievement Had accomplished in handling a disorder on the right time Being injured due to accomplishing a mission or rescuing others Having alerted to a subversive (or revolt), discovering a crime, avoiding an accident and having outstanding achievement Having returned from the enemy line and having a good record in a battle Having invented or improved a weapon or military apparatus which passed the inspection and have a great contribution to the military Other hard works in performing their duty and having obtained a excellent records that deserve an award This medal could also be awarded to civilians and to foreigners.

First type (1929-1951) This medal (first nationalistic medal!) was established on August 15, 1929 in two Grades A grade B grade In turn each grade has two classes A grade 1st class A grade 2nd class B grade 1st class B grade 2nd class Grade A medals intended for high ranking officers (level of Major and higher). Grade B medals awarded to junior officers (level of Captain and lower) and privates. Awarding is performed in consecutive order from 2nd class to 1st class. This division on grades and classes is quite typical for many modern Taiwan medals (and very much in tradition of early awarding system I must add )

Not much… Black and white pictures + description of colors (unfortunately even this short description contains inaccuracies and mistakes – we’ll discuss them a little later). Time has come to give a detailed description for this medal.

Explanatory material

Illustrations

Different variants of translation are consequences of word-by-word translation practice and in some cases even incomplete word-by-word translation. The only (published in English) source that is available for us today was published in 1962. I am talking about James Peterson small brochure James W. Peterson (1962) Chinese Nationalist Medals and Awards. Award publications №1, Award publications, Lyons, Illinois. Lets see what he wrote about this medal (in his book he called it Army, Navy, and Air Force Medal).

should be translated (as far as I understand it is a set expression) as Medal of Armed Forces. Word-by-word translation

I think it will be very interesting and extremely useful to talk about this beautiful Medal of Armed Forces Let’s go for it! They call it Medal of Armed Forces a.k.a. Army, Navy, and Air Force Medal a.k.a. Armed Forces General Medal a.k.a. Medal of Armed Forces a.k.a. Military Medal a.k.a. Army and Navy Medal Too many names for one medal? Not my fault! The original name of this medal

Yuan Shikai`s inauguration postcards in HQ

Another close up

Close up of the Grand Order

Nope. Actually he had Check this unbelievable photo.

Yes, indeed Peterson wrote about following variations 1) variation with gold gilt instead of silver one on obverse or (???!!!) 2) with a different style of characters on reverse (obviously our specimen has 1) + 2) features ... No place for "or") or 3) with "commemorative" instead of "merit" on reverse or 4) with blank reverse or 5) entirely black lacquered (only reverse?) or 6) entirely silvered (only reverse?) All these were labeled as "samples" ... (actually I believe that the right word should be "trial medals"/"пробники") The only question who labeled them... My guess our fellow collectors Where did they get this info? Some additional thoughts 1) trial medal has ribbon! and this ribbon has "incorrect" order of national colors 2) trial medal has high quality box with gold gilded inscription!!! 3) according to Peterson we have 6 (or 5?) different trial medals... Too many "trials"? And if they are "in collections" how many of them were manufactured? But then again National Foundation Medal was the very first Manchu Medal... And there is a probability that these are indeed high quality trial medals. Also there is a probability that these were (at least some of them) contemporary souvenirs manufactured in Japan as mementos Cheers, Nick

Nice! Thanks, Nick

Get the shovels! We'll call ourselves "Tomb Robbers from Alderaan"

Looks like we have photographic evidence only for Yuan Shikai, Li Yuan-hung, Shichang and Cao Kun Grand Orders. Cheers, Nick

Chang Tso-lin 1 2

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Cao Kun 1

Feng Guozhang

Duan Qirui 2

Unfortunatly Duan Qirui don`t have any photos with our precious ... But a lot of photos with others precious ;)

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