Jump to content
News Ticker
  • I am now accepting the following payment methods: Card Payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal
  • Latest News

    Belgium - Commemorative Medal of the War 1914-1918


    Guest Darrell

    Recommended Posts

    Hi VC89,

    Thank you so much for your answer. I believe that with respect to the black emailed bars, they are smaller than the one for the mothers' whose son died. On the Conmmemorative Medal they are used to indicate Prisioners of War status, one bar for every 6 months.

    Any one else has an opinion?

    Best regards,

    GM1

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • Replies 76
    • Created
    • Last Reply

    Top Posters In This Topic

    It seems you are right, GM1, they are smaller.

    According to Borné (again) the measurements of the POW-bar is 40 x 2 mm and the mothers-bar is 40 x 4 mm.

    It seems the recipient of your medal was a pow for 2 years, so ignore my comment :blush:.

    Still, if anyone has an anwser (or opinion) to Jef's question about the possibility of more mother-bars on one medal I would love to hear it. (see post #49)

    Vincent

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Have a question, Vincent. Suppose that mother lost four sons . Was she allowed to wear 4 bars on the medal? I checked it in the Andé Borne book but wasn't able to find it.

    just wondering.

    Kind regards,

    Jef

    If a mother had more than one son killed in action, she would wear each son's set of medals and there would be a single black enamel bar on each medal of each set. Multiple black enameled bars can't be right in my opinion ...

    Regards,

    Hendrik

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 4 months later...
    • 3 weeks later...
    • 11 months later...

    Hi,

    I've come across a 1914-18 commemorative medal that is much thicker than I've seen before. I'm not a collector of them particularly, so maybe it's fairly common, but of the four I've seen, this is the thickest. I was wondering whether anyone could tell me whether this is unusual. In particular, I'd like to know whether it's a different type common to a particular manufacturer, or perhaps even a fake. It's 3 mm deep, compared to the 'normal' one I have, which is just 2 mm deep. Consequently, the thicker one is much heavier than the other. Otherwise, they appear to be the same.

    I have a subsidiary question as well. I read in various places that the 6 month bars are silver and the 30 month bar is silver gilt. Being pedantic about these things, I would be interested to know whether they are actually silver, silver plated or a silver coloured metal.

    Many thanks on my first posting.

    Commemorative Medal 14-18.jpg

    Comm medals side-on - s.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 4 weeks later...
    Hi Carey,
     
    It is an unusual medal you have there.  Haven't seen anything like it either but as I've never paid all that much attention to this very common medal, I'm not at all into its various manufacturers and their particular manufacturing characteristics.  
     
    Pictures can be misleading and bearing that in mind, I'm getting the impression of the thicker medal being a 2-piece construction with a thin lighter-coloured and a thicker and darker metal having been struck together. Is this correct ? A detailed picture of the ring suspension would be of interest in this respect, I think. I'm assuming there's no maker's mark anywhere on the thicker medal's rim.
    And how's the reverse looking ?
    I very much doubt a common, widely awarded decoration as this commemorative medal is, would have been copied and suggest a manufacturing variety is what you have there.
     
    As to the front service bars, silvered and gilt metal is what I've come across so far. I would expect genuine silver to be identified by a silver mark (e.g. A950 or A850 etc.) on the bar itself.
     
    Regards,
    Hendrik
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Thank you very much Hendrik for your reply.

    First, here's a picture of the reverse. This medal is a lovely deep bronze aged colour and wouldn't show much detail if I reproduced the colour properly, so I've lightened it a few shades, although it is still rather dark! I've also provided a close up.

    CommMed14-18 Enlarged.jpg

    CommMed14-18 BothSides.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Hmmm, they are still very dark indeed. Anyway, I'll carry on and send new ones if necessary. The two pictures below show:

    a) The edge of the medal. You'll see that actually it's only a single casting, not made from 2 pieces. However, you can see that the lower part of the edge is rougher than the upper part. You can also see a bevelled edge top and bottom, which may be why you thought it was made from 2 pieces.

    b) The other picture shows the suspension. Note that looking down onto the top of it, the pattern goes all the way from front to back which suggest to me that it wasn't due to a poorly constructed mould (despite the uneveness I referred to above), but the mould was designed to be very thick.

    Thanks also for your comments about the service bars. This is what I had thought. So really they should be referred to as silvered and gilded base metal bars. Having said that, they are extremely malleable, very much like silver and more than I would expect from a base metal. 

    CommMed14-18 Edges.jpg

    CommMed14-18 Susp.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Thanks for the additional pictures. I think we can stick with the manufacturer's variety verdict as it is a 1-piece construction after all. The lack of pronounced details on this medal is quite typical.

    Regards,

    Hendrik

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Thank you very much indeed Hendrik. I'm pleased that you think it is genuine and an unusual version. Maybe someone out there knows about the manufacturers of this common medal and can add more.

    Best regards,

    Carey.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Hello Hendrik and Carey,

    I have seen another very thick specimen of this medal. It was, however, of French manufacturer and was produced by the firm of M.Delande, so not necessarily relevant to this discussion. The giveaway in the French made example is that there were minor die variations.

    Regards,

    Rob

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Hello Carey,

    I can't recall the exact differences at this moment. I will look into my picture files and I should be able to post some pics of the example mention for reference here.

    Regards,

    Rob

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Hello Carey,

    As indicated here are two French made examples from the firm of M.Delande. They were obtained at the close-down of stock from that vendor. Both examples do not have the signature on the front nor the initials on the lower back.

    I hope that this was of use.

    Regards,

    Rob

    1094-1.jpg

    1094-2.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 2 weeks later...

    Hello gentlemen,

    Been awhile for me here.  The examples Rob posted above appear to be quite common in U.S. groupings where the serviceman received awards from the Belgian government.  Here are some old file PIC's I've saved.

    First pic: shorter neck with the areas notated.

    Second pic: longer neck version.

    Third pic: showing the sew-on style brooch commonly used by U.S. personnel.  I've seen this in groups and a couple of made up bars as well.

    Tim

    1.JPG

    Belgian WW1 Commemorative.JPG

    Belgian WW1 Comm.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Here are some of mine with the more common variety of attachments.  As you can see, the red cross came in several shapes and sizes.  I only have the one medal bar with the fairly common setup.

    Tim

    1.JPG

    Medal bar f.JPG

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    I meant to add this regarding the highly detailed version of the commemorative medal discussed above.

    In the June 1943 George Studley catalog, you can see he was offering various foreign awards and the Belgian WW1 Commemorative Medal is of the style shown with the longer neck.

    3.JPG

    4.JPG

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now



    ×
    ×
    • Create New...

    Important Information

    We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.