INDIA - Highest Gallantry Award Cased Specimens

[Ed_Haynes]

From the latest Morton and Eden sale, some cased mint specimens of the three highest Indian gallantry awards. The sports of things (at least the first two) that no Normal Human will ever get. Until the early 1970s, the Calcutta Mint sold these specimen sets.

[Ed_Haynes]

The Param Vir Chakra (PVC +~ VC) specimen from the ANS III sale.

Many things interesting:

1- The case, the high-domed 1960s fine black leather case I have seen before, but not named.

Edited May 8, 2007 by Ed_Haynes

[Ed_Haynes]

2- The medal. The same dark bronze I have seen on the mint-supplied specimen at the USI-I. So dark and rich it is hard to scan.

As close as I'll ever get to The Real Thing?

[Ed_Haynes]

3- And the bar. Never awarded, of course. And, so far as I know, this design is nothing the MoD medal office has ever seen!

[Ed_Haynes]

The Ashoka Chakra I (AC1 ~= GC).

1- The high-domed named Calcutta Mint case.

[Ed_Haynes]

2- The medal. Nice (?) to see the gilt is mostly evaporated on this one, as with the USI-I specimen.

[Ed_Haynes]

3- And, as with the PVC, the rarest part, the unawarded undocumented AC1 bar. Much better gilding than the medal!

[Ed_Haynes]

Maybe not so rare, but, the way things are going, this M&E specimen of the Maha Vir Chakra (MCV, the 2nd-level military gallantry decoration) may be as close as I ever get.

1- The domed 1960s mint case.

[Ed_Haynes]

2- The medal, with the gilt long gone (as with all I've seen!).

[Ed_Haynes]

3- And the bar.

[Brian Wolfe]

Hi Ed,

Very nice, it makes my heart beat a little faster.

I guess I'll just keep buying those lottery tickets!

Cheers

Brian

[Ed_Haynes]

Yes, Brian. That hurt. Bad. But post-1947 India is, after all, my #1 collecting area!

And these are things that collectors will never see.

[Megan]

Beautiful!

Ed, when the original 3 class Ashoka Chakra was changed in 1967 to 3 separate awards, did the design change? If so, which one is the one depicted here?

[Ed_Haynes]

Beautiful!

Ed, when the original 3 class Ashoka Chakra was changed in 1967 to 3 separate awards, did the design change? If so, which one is the one depicted here?

Good question. Until 1967, the Ashoka Chakra (and other awards like the Vishisht Seva Medal) has a "class" structure. It was three separate awards, different metals, different ribbons, but under the same "name umbrella". In 1967, these were changed and renamed. For the Ashoka Chakra I, there was no design change and the medal remained the same. The other medals were redesigned with the new names:

Ashoka Chakra I => Ashoka Chakra

Ashoka Chakra II => Kirti Chakra

Ashoka Chakra III => Shaurya Chakra

So . . . the ACI shown here could just as easily be a post-1967 AC, were it not for the title on the case and the known provenance and history (from the ANS collection, purchased from the Calcutta Mint -- something they stopped doing in the early 1970s -- and gifted to the ANS collection in 1984 -- in the case was the original ANS collection tag).