Hendrik

Marcus, Ed, ... bars and devices are difficult ... I'm afraid I have to agree although I suppose they would be slightly easier to find here in Belgium locally then elsewhere. Also, more specifically on the Korean War medal that you show a picture of, battle bars for those (or for the WW2 commemorative medal) are not available very often. Took me years to find the cute one you'll see below ... Similarly WW2 bars only come up very occasionally. I was lucky years ago to be able to find a number of those with a manufacturer that stopped producing and got rid of his stock. The result of that haul is on my site :-) Marcus, you are quite right on those Military Long Service Medals and the ribbon change for the Art. 4 bravery types. The two you have there are types from the reign of King Albert I (the unilingual French one with the "A" cypher on the reverse - very much pre-1950) and the current type (bilingual, lion on both sides, post 1950) which was started under King Baudouin and has been maintained till the present day. Prior to the Baudouin type there are 3 others : Leopold II, Albert I and Leopold III but the number of variations due to various manufacturers making all of these is enormous. A couple of fellow collectors here in Belgium have managed to make a complete book on just those ! "Only" took them 5 years to compile it Ed, re : How close to correct am I? ... very close in my opinion. The whole topic of "official" versus "non-official" is quite complicated especially where French medals are concerned. Maybe that warrants a new thread on French medals ? Sticking with the Belgian stuff for the moment, there's even no Belgian Mint making them : all are/were manufactured by private firms and indeed - except for "special" awards to foreign or domestic politicians, heads of state, VIP's of all kinds, etc. - the "common" recipient merely received a certificate from the grateful government and had to go about purchasing the award ... only the wealthy get them for free With Belgian medals I take the view that if they have been instituted by a Royal Decree they're official, if not (e.g. created by veterans' or patriotic societies, etc.) they should be deemed non-official ...ahem, the Belgian Red Cross then being semi-official, I guess ??? Very useful things those emoticons ! Ed, as an aside : interested in the French "Levant Medal" aka the Syria-Cilicia Medal, it's a bit in your area I think ? I've so far come across 7 medal types and some 27 ribbon bar types (official and non-official !!!). Hence my previous remark on starting a new thread. I'm currently looking for the original texts on the institution of the Vichy France and Free French types... feel free to let me have any info you may have on those ! [attachmentid=17083]

Thanks to all for the welcome - Glad to come across you again Ed, it's been a while

Here's one with a few bars ... [attachmentid=17068]

Yes, the second type was primarily used for the Korean War (with a bar denoting service there) but also as a retroactive award to those entitled to the WW2 medal that had never received it before the application date for it expired (3 July 1951). In the latter case a "1940-1945" bar was added on the ribbon. The same goes for WW I volunteers ("1914-1918" bar) although there can have been only a very few of those that hadn't received the proper WW I medal at the time. Volunteers that had seen combat action received a bar "PUGNATOR" (originally in bronze, later in silver). [attachmentid=17066] [attachmentid=17067]

Hello Marcus, Officially bars would have a maximum of 4 stars (denoting 2 years of imprisonement) and medals would have supplementary bars on the ribbon to indicate longer periods. However, manufacturers in Belgium (and a few other countries) don't always follow the rules ... Similarly the crossed sabres on your WW2 Commemorative Medal appear to be a bit too large as would befit the official standard of 6mm wide. Nothing to worry about though as I've seen veterans wearing this medal with huge crossed sabres ... Cheers, Hendrik [attachmentid=17062]

Hello Laurence, Just joined the forum and came across your Leopold II knight cross. I don't think the gilding wore off : knight crosses are silver/silvered bronze ... more likely to be patina. Cheers, Hendrik