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Additional info about Dr. Lewis's distinguished career could be found here http://www.nasa.gov/...s/lewisbio.html http://en.wikipedia....George_W._Lewis Dr. Lewis's was also a cavalier of the Order of the British Empire. Here it is.

Signature close up

Citation

Signatures close ups

And the original certificate (the real deal!!!) signed by President Harry S. Truman (!), 1947.

Reverse close up

Obverse close up

General view

Very interesting and well designed decoration Medal for Merit (http://en.wikipedia....Medal_for_Merit). You don`t see these very often Let`s take a look at the Medal that was awarded to Dr. George William Lewis.

Richard I created a separate thread devoted to this medal http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/54262-merit-medal-of-the-republic-its-origin-and-classes/page__gopid__497158 Cheers, Nick

I believe that design of all these later medals (Hupei Medal, Shanxi Warlord Medal, Hunan Province Medal, etc… see ) were based on this “nation-wide” medal. Regards, Nick

All three variations in one gallery – for comparison analysis.

Variation C

Marked specimen on the left was described in Tammann 2008 catalogue as “2nd class” and catalogue creators stated that “2nd class was for lower officers”….

Variation B

Variation A

Most likely this medal was created on April 9, 1913 in four classes. At least according to the only (?) published source about this decoration – “Orden aus aller Welt Sammlung Tammann 80. Auktion Katalog, 4-5 November 2008, p.178”. In turn compilers of this catalogue used “The China Year Book, Chicago 1916”, “The China Year Book, Chicago 1920” and “Who’s Who in China, 3rd edition, Shanghai, 1925”. Since this medal wasn’t listed in “The China Year Book of 1920” they concluded that: “It seems that it was distributed after that year by only Sun Yat-sen’s Government in Canton. The maker’s name and the date are indeed typical for decorations by the Canton Government”. There, that’s all we have. Now let’s take a look at different classes and variations of this interesting medal. Since we don’t have any precise information about design of different classes of this medal I think it will be a good idea to avoid naïve (and possibly incorrect) labeling. That’s why instead of class I will use the word variation.

Let’s have a little talk about this mysterious “Merit Medal”. This so-called Chinese Republic Merit Medal which is also known as Merit Medal of the Republic Silver Merit Medal of the Republic Medal for Military Merit Original inscription on the medal obverse (this could be translated as “Medal of the Republic of China”)

Shanxi badge has at least two variations. Ain`t it cool? One variations has blue rays and the other white rays. Here we have this 1st class "white rays" variation.

"GMIC is eight years old next month ..." Hey Nick! Could you please tell us the exact date, so we all could celebrate And another thing - if possible, could you make a pre-jubilee post in your blog about the origins of GMIC. I think it will be interesting not only to Moscovites Best, Nick

Ferdinand is right - this happened because of mistake and/or slow circulation of documents... Two additional examples of repeated 2nd class awarding (both are full cavaliers) Hero of Soviet Union Naldin V.S. http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=9381 Petrukovitch A.S. (very nice photo!) http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=9391 Cheers, Nick

Naaaaa It's time for China Incident rebranding http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-WW2-Japanese-China-Incident-War-Medal-Nice-Condition-No-Reserve-/300696679345?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4602eb33b1#ht_955wt_689

Nope... "Only" 43,45$ Are we running out of dope?

That's why I called them If it comes to that these (schmucks ? ) don't have "official" medals at all!!! As we both know RF has only 21 "official" (state) medal All others (no less than 23 000 medals ) are just shiny nicknacks... The fact that these shiny nicknacks issued by state ministries doesn't change a thing, since the very same ministries will sell them to you with blank documents and sometimes (for the special price of course ) with filled ones ...

Do you know this source Frank? http://armygoods.ru/index.php?cat=551 If no, then I hope you'll find it interesting (at least as source for pictures of more then 10000 different modern russian "medals" (God save us all!) and countless thousands of badges). Also tons of military related stuff. Cheers, Nick