peter monahan

Beauitful work! Pity the tailor didn't use a real colour scheme and pattern. Oh, for the days when such sewing was affordable! I just spent 4 hours hand sewing a set of medieval 'braies' or underwear. At any reaonable rate of return I'd have to charge $50-75 for them if I were selling same. That's why no one does this kind of work anymore!

Good Lord, are they faking Victory Medals now?

A post by Chris Boonzaier from 2010 - see below - says '710' on the rolls at one point and another 410 at a later date - these would be, I think, the actual rolls used to issue the medals and the numbers seem to indicate 2 different lots of names 'porcessed', but you can read the details below.

Lovely! And nonwe of your shoddy paper passes for an event of that importance. As Brett says, probably very collectable.

Wow! He must have had some serious dirt on the MO and the Colnel to have been allowed to stay in at that age. I assume that the age on the stone is correct but suspect that a check of the records would show a far lower number. Not uncommon, like the Irish rifleman whose grave in Tynecot Cemetery gives his age as '15'. presumably enlisted as '18' but by the time Imperial War Graves got the stone up somebody - family, I suspect - had corrected the record. There are two Canadian brothers, from my town, who died in '17 an 18 and, by there enlistment records were born the same year but the younger was 18 when he died, 2 years after enlistment, so clearly 16 when he joined and lied. And that will make establishing both youngest and oldest deaths/service tricky because many men gave false ages at both ends of the scale. But good luck with the project!

Clearly I am mistaken, then, about the correct ribbon - as illustrated on the award document. I was popping back and forth between several on-line sites and trying to sort out the earlier award from the later version and 'merit' from 'Civl Merit' However, it still looks to me as if the owner or his tailor used a substitute, a common enough practice with rare foreign awards, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how one would go about tracking down the owner, other than trolling the London Gazette or whatever the Chilean equivalent would be, if such exists, and I'm not familiar enough with the Gazette to guess whether or not such an award would appear there. Frustrating!

Not 'Sir', because I work for a living. Good luck with that. I'm sure the OMSA members would be interested.

Very impressive - both the medals and the accompanying information. You might consider cntacting OMSA - Orders and Medals Society of America - to see whether they have more information and /or whether they are interested in publishing an article on these medals if you are interested in writing one. [ http://www.omsa.org/ ]

Lovely looking pieces and I suspect that the Thai Korea qualifies as 'quite rare'. Sounds like a good price too. It's nice to hear that such finds are still possible in the less 'in touch' parts of the world!

Not my field, but I believe theat the Orders and Medals Society of America [OMSA http://www.omsa.org/ ] maintains a 'ribbon bank' for the use of members and, perhaps, others. It might be worth checking out if you plan to collect US medals.

Chris is quite active on the GMIC. You may PM him, if you wish, by clicking on his name at the top of any of his posts. Peter

The Order was instituted in 1906, 'For meritorious service provided by foreigners to the Republic of Chile', and at least one 1930s award was to a Luftwaffe officer, presumably attached to the German embassy in Chile, so it's a fair bet that the owner of this set was a military attache or some such in Chile. One point: all the illustraions I can find show that the Order ribbon is solid blue, while the red/white blue ribbon on this example seems to be the ribbon for the Chilean Order of Civil Merit so presumably at some point the original ribbon was replaced, either in error or because the owner wasn't able to get the correct ribbon, with one from a similar order. Here is an example of the Civil Merit order: https://www.emedals.com/an-chilean-order-of-civil-merit-knight

James I berlieve we have a number of members in southern Africa but am not sure what their collecting interests are. OTOH, dependiong on where you were thinking od selling, I suspect you would fins a lot of interest in Selous items, as such 'elite' units seem to fetch a real premium among some collectors. Good luck.

Thank you, Demir! This is exactly the sort of thing which makes the GMIC such a pleasure to be involved with. Your work is appreciated. Peter

"By Jove, I think he's got it!' Looks as if Welbeck College may be the answer. Well spotted, sir.

The badge is the Bronze one issued to members of the Indian Army who served in WWI! He must be wearing the WWI medals and the badge of arelative. Perhaps his father? Good eye, Bayern. I wasn't able to make out any detail on the shoulder straps except that they were wearing some kind of slip-on, but what you sat seems plausible.

My pleasure!

I know just enough to be dangerous when it comes to preserving textiles and what I do know is that it is specialist work! The only easy and safe advice I have is: wrap it in acid free archival paper - art stores may have it - and keep it away from light. After that, if you want to do more, plan to spend money with a profesional conservator. Anybody else may well do more harm than good. The US National Parks Service publishes a series called "Conservo-grams". https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html Section 16 has some on textiles including one on riolling and storing flags. Good luck! Peter

I think that the first medal on his chest is the India General Service Medal (1909) - a very disntinctive gree/blue/green ribbon. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_General_Service_Medal_(1909)] So, he must be older than he looks, as the last bar for that was the NWF 1935 bar,before the medal was replced by the IGS 1936. On a second look, the rest of the ribbons look as if thewy could be WWI, not WWII. Does that fit with his age as you know it? The gent on the left is wearing a very odd tunic, with the exposed buttons and both appear to be wearing some sort of [temporary] slip-on rank tabs on their epaulettes, which makes me think 'officer cadet' or 'officer', though perhaps they belong to some irregular unit, uniformed by the British or Indians as the war wwas ending. A close-up of the badge he wears on his left breast pocket would be very very helpful.

The rank appears to be 1st lieutenant Mulazim awwal. Other than that, I'm afraid I have no information.

The 4th, his unit, were in the 1st Cdn Infty Bde with the 1, 2 & 3rd Bttns. Initially in reserve, the went into action at about 9:30 a.m. around Thelus and had 43 KIA, 130 WIA by the end of the day. The war diary has the complete 8-10pg plan for the assault and a literally minute by minute narrative which runs 6-8 typed pages.

I think it was in the 1980s, back when I still paid attention to ODMs and their sales that a change aoocurred. An acquaintance got a Garter Star or some such and, as had been his custom, wrote to the relevant office in the UK to ask if they could put a name to the number on the reverse. He and others had done this for years but this time he got a quick respnse saying 'That's the property of HM and we'd appreciate it if you'd send it back to us.' That from the new head of the office in question. I'm not sure he surrendered tio but I recall the discussions around 'Now what?' and how quickly collectors stopped trumpeting their acqusitions after that.

Rebecca I'm sure you know that a bit of information on James Olde is already available on line at the Archives in Ottawa - enlistment papers and the war diaries of his unit. The Archives are also in the process of digitizing the complete service records of all 660,000 members of the CEF. For the last 8 weeks or so the 'count' so to speak has been stalled at A - McLLeland but they should be through the 'Mc's this summer, I'd guess and 'Olde' will appear in due course. 'Complete' service record means, typically, copies of the attestion papers, all the pay records and medical notes and reports plus at least one and sometimes two small cards which list every unit with which the man served, their locations ad the dates when they joined and left each. That last is invluable for marrying up the unit records such as the war diary with the man's service. I hope this all is of some use to you. Thank you for sharing the clipping on your relative! Peter Monahan

What a coincidence! I was at a 'launch' for my recent book last evening - on 'Local Boys' from my area - and one of the guests had a granfather who fought with the 4th Battalion. None of the men who enlisted here in the 157th Bttn saw action as 'Simcoe Foresters' because 2/3s of the Cdn units were broken up on reaching France and re-assigned. Many of them went to the 4th and 19th Bttns, both titled 'Central Ontario'. I was able to establish that this lady's granfer reached the 4th on July 17th, 1917 and on August 17th, while attacking Hill 70, was hit by a piece of shrapnel. It actually lodged in his right breast pocket! But, it also gave him a 3" scar and did enough damage to his lungs that after 7 months in hospitals in England and France he was invalaided out and sent home. His grand daughter, who remembers him, said he would hide in the basement omn remembrance day and never ever spoke of the War.

What a lovely group! I actually belong to a group which portrays/re-enacts the Canadian AMC, so it is of special interest to me. You asked about the staus of 'terriers' in WWI. I know very little about it but the excellent site 'The Long, Long Trail' says this: The recruitment of men into TF units was very localised and remained so well into 1916. The TF was mobilised for full-time war service immediately war was declared When TF troops agreed to overseas service, they signed the "Imperial Service Obligation". They were then issued with a special badge, known as the "Imperial Service Brooch", to be worn on their right breast. If you have a photo of a soldier wearing this badge, he is definitely a Territorial. Many TF units also issued distinctive insignia, notably the "Shoulder title", a brass badge carrying the name of the unit worn on the shoulder. Here is an example. The badge of the 4th Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, a Territorial infantry unit. The T and the general arrangement of this title is typical. When war was declared, all TF troops received orders to mobilise. Many of them had just gone onto the annual fortnight's training camp and were hurriedly recalled to the home base. Most TF units had a pre-arranged war station and the units moved quickly to take up their allotted places. Some were sent to garrison duties at various points around the Empire, replacing the regular units that were required for service in France. On 15 August 1914 orders were issued to separate the "home service" men from those who had undertaken to serve overseas, with the intention of forming reserves made up of those who had not so volunteered. Those men that did not agree were separated out into "Home Service" or "Second Line" units. The original units now became known as the "Foreign Service" or "First Line". These terms are often seen on TF men's service records. http://www.1914-1918.net/tf.htm