There?s nothing new in this field of Medal collecting

[Alex K]

I am reading a book by a gentleman named AA Payne LRCP,MRCS, entitled ?British and Foreign Orders War Medals and Decorations awarded to the Army and Navy?.

This is basically a catalogue of his medal collection which comprised of 2500 medals!

Mostly British but a high quantity of foreign decorations and is 800 pages long

These include amongst others 108 Naval General Service Medals 1793-1840 ranging from 1 clasp to 5 clasps + boat service (All catalogued)

Uncountable Waterloo and Military general Service Medals from 1-15 bars, and similar Army of India medals! (again catalogued)

Plus numerous quantities of other campaign medals. (catalogued)

To me the interesting point is the two following comments written in his book

Copies attached.

The whole point of this is that this book was written in 1911 !!

What chance do people have nearly a hundred years later when it comes to medal collecting, he admits that he had ?200 UKP worth of forgeries in his collection (1911 remember), that must have bought a whole lot of fakes In those days, I wonder where these forgeries ended up??

And we think we have problems with modern forgeries!

Regards

[Alex K]

part 2

Edited April 19, 2007 by Alex K

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Alex K,

very interesting snippits of information, but I have to wonder if he is refering to real medals that have names added on them to people who were not entitled to them, (self-awarded) as to out and out forgerys of the medals themselves.

He seems to feel its easier to check out the officers awards as there is much more detailed info in Records, where as to verify other-ranks is far harder?

Kevin in Deva

[Alex K]

Hi kev It's difficult for me to answer that question as I am only quoting verbatim from his book, I feel that he was (At the time) talking more about people not entitled to them rather than Renames, or it could be both, he doesn't elaborate unfortunately, I could be wrong however.

I can scan in the whole preface (Only three pages out of the 800 thankfully) for people to make their own interpretation, I just found it interesting that forgeries as he calls them is nothing new, one can make comparisons here with TR, Renamed British or the whole pile of cr*p one can find on Ebay, It seems to me that the problem has ben around for many years

regards

Alex

[Guest Rick Research]

Von Hessenthal and Schreiber, writing about German medals in the 1930s, and decades ahead of their times with weights and measurements, also commented on fakes and "improvements" of awards.

Retrofitting later versions of Soviet awards, ruining them to make fake "early" types, still goes on.

This sort of thing was probably going on while the stone quarry gangs were building the pyramids.

Where there is money, there are crooks.

[Alex K]

Rick, I like the bit about the stone quarries! I suspect you are right, where's there's money there's gold as they say,

on a serious note, it does make it that more difficult for us who collect these things to know what's what, particularly if things are faked so many years ago and turn up looking totally authentic with years of ageing about them

regards

Alex

[JBFloyd]

When Payne was collecting, there was little concern with naming and regiments on medals. On MGS and NGS Medals, collectors were looking for the clasps and it was common for clasps to bepulled off one medal and added to another pendant so the "collection" had the maximum number of available clasps. In this effort, multi-bar medals were stripped.

It's only been in the past 30 years or so that auction catalogs, for example, even listed the medal recipient's name. The catalogs usually just listed "Sjt, KRRC" because nobody cared abiout the recipient and certainly spent little, if any, time researchng his service.

His reference to the regimental medals is a long-time problem. When the medal consists of of a hand-engraved sheet of silver, anyone who can find an engraver can fake those.

[Alex K]

hi kev, following on from your earlier post re officers/enlisted men in his collection, reading further into the book he lists a great number of enlisted men in his collection, which I must summise he feels to be genuine , so I assume from this that he is not specifically reffering to only officers in his collection, although it could be inferred that "Lower Ranks" were possibly more prone to "adjusting their entitlement", As I understand it, a good military career at the time, together with medals to show this, stood a person in good stead in civilan life, A trustworthy soul etc etc

regards

Alex

[Alex K]

Hi Jeff thanks for that, interesting, so are you saying that for example a medal awarded to a soldier that had say three clasps but may have had additional clasps fitted to which he was obviously not entitles to just to fill a space in the collection with regards to clasps??and?that?these?may?the?ones?he?refers?to?as having??200?worth?of?forgeries,?he?seems?meticulous?in?catalogueing?his?collection, I never realised that the recipient was not important, in fact I suppose that he's the most important aspect

Regards

Alex

Edited April 20, 2007 by Alex K

[Ed_Haynes]

Until the 1960s, this sort of "type collecting" was common among British collectors. Groups were routinely broken up and the only desire was to get desirable medal and clasp combinations, with no regard at all for the naming (unless it was named to a non-European and then the medals tended to be denamed as unnamed medals were more highly valued than a medal, say, to an Indian). It was all rather like stamp collecting, filling "holes" in the stamp album.

As Payne was one of the fathers of British medal collecting, he was also a progenitor of this approach. Clasps couuld be swapped about to make a scarce combination (as they still are today). Look at the number of dealers selling loose clasps. Where did those come from? Whose medals got stripped and why??

While the collecting of British medals (defined broadly) has mostly evolved beyond this today, other phaleristic fields retain this view.

[Alex K]

Hi Ed thanks for the reply, I hear and understand what you say, to summise (and this not an accusation but a clarification) that the medals listed from his collection, see attached, may not be what they seem? I have specifically picked some of his MGS medals with high number of bars as an example. Are there any rolls that could actually verify if the recipients listed actually are entitled to them?

regards

Alex

[Ed_Haynes]

I am not sure that the rolls were available in Payne's day, but they are today.

I believe the medals from his collection, as they have passed down across the generations, have (mostly) been verified as research has become possible and more normal. Remember, he was buying mostly from the veterans themselves or from their sons/daughters.

Due to his collecting interests (and mine), I have no "Ex-Payne Collection" items. He carefully avoided medals to Indians, having no sources in the country. Almost makes me wish I did have that link!

[JBFloyd]

The Mullen roll shows each of these as correct and notes their pedigree to the Payne Collection.

Monkeying with the clasps was more common on NGS Medals. There was a glut of Syria medals, so many of them were used to hold rarer clasps. That's why you see catalogs today note that "Pierre Cowznofski appears six times on the roll (1 for Trafalgar and 5 for Syria)". Since the ship's name is not on the medal, sometimes only the roll will help sort out who the recipient was.

[Alex K]

jeff thanks for the info, so I assume that when Payne refers to these ?200 worth of forgeries, he probably refers to the NGS, he certainly seems to suggest this in the second paragraph I scanned.

regards

Alex