Belgium Serb bravery medal to Belgian/Obilich medal

[love4history]

The other day my eye fell on an item sold on eBay as a "Russian (?) silver medal"

The fact that I had seen the medal in a referencebook before and that there was an out of place Belgian Albert-palm (WWI-era) on it caught my attention.

The seller at the same time sold a number of other WWI-medals, among which was this named Yser-plaque.

(naming not visible, is on the back)

I did some research on the name and this is what popped up:

confirming the Serb bravery medal to this man! All his other medals (CdG with two palms, volunteer medal) were on sale as well (although these were unnamed) and a couple of books belonging to this man.

The good news was this special group being on sale, the bad news was that it was once again torn into pieces. I bid on a few of them but concentrating my bids on the named Plaque and the Serb medal. And I won them! No luck on the other medals though.

But now I am the proud custodian of this partial group of Mr D'Hoolaege!

(picture of the back, bit fuzzy though)

(and the front)

Even more good news: a couple of days later his "firecard" popped up. Of course I went after it but to my big disappointment I didn't win it.

However, it turned out that another forum member here had been bidding as well. He won it AND he also succeeded in securing the CdG with the two palms (had been bought by a dealer and put on sale again immediately ) So I would kindly ask him to post a pic of these two additions to his collection

Between the two of us at least we salvaged the most important pieces of this group and although neither of us is willing to part with his part of the group for the time being, we have made a promise that the other one would get first dibs when it ever comes to parting with these items

[love4history]

Oh yeah, by the way.. forgot to mention.. this other member did some research as well and he actually came up with the text of the mention in the dispatch for which our man was granted his bravery medal!...

But I'll let him do the honours as it was his he who provided the information.