Austria-Hungary A Hungarian Regency Fire medal

[Ulsterman]

This is my newest addition...a lovely little medal. It has "Heves 1925" on the back-engraved. Typical Austrian coinage design, really good.

Is this a long service award (I assume so) or was it awarded also for merit or bravery?

Anyone know?

Edited January 18, 2008 by Ulsterman

[hunyadi]

Well - Heves is a town as well as a county in Hungary. This is not a long service medal either. It may be a competitions medal of some sorts? Really dont know. Though period to the 1930's, I dont think the ribbon would go with this as the ribbon is for a Fire Cross or the WW1 Commemorative Medal. All of the firemans medals that I have seen generaly used a tri color ribbon of equal parts (red, white, green), solid red, solid orange, etc...

[Gordon Craig]

Ulsterman,

Here are some other possibilities besides those mentioned by Hunyadi. The design of the medal could be from an earlier period that the thirties. It could have been as early as the turn of the century but that is just an"educated" guess. The Firefighter Association awarded medals of a similar design in this period. I thought I had pictures of one but couldn't find it in my archives. If it was awarded for a competition I would have expected that the name of the competition would be engraved on the back. At least in an abreviated form. The medal appears to have been struck with a plain reverse and you could engrave whatever you wanted to on the back. It does not appear to be an official state awarded medal but one awarded locally which would tend to put it in the local competition area. Having said all of that, I don't really know what it is! Here is a picture of a medal awarded by the Fireman's Association that I feel is from pre WWII days. The ribbon on your medal should look something similar to this one.

Regards,

Gordon