Hungary Order of Precedence verus how they were actually awarded

[Gordon Craig]

Gents,

Some time ago a question was asked about how medals were awarded. Were they always awarded as bronze first, silver second, gold third etc. At first glance, it would seem obvious that Hungary would follow the practices of other countries and award medals in successively higher classes. As it turned out, from our discussion on this earlier thread, they don't. The class awarded often appears somewhat arbitrary but the organization awarding the medal would have had specific reasons for awarding the class that they did. That, unfortunately, is probably lost to histroy. Some time ago I picked up three Miners medals that illustrates this fact very well. Since these three awards all come in different coloured folders, I'll illustrate the cover of each folder as well as the document and the award. So here are the medals, and their accompanying award documents, in the order that they were awarded.

Regards,

Gordon

A B?NY?SZ SZOLG?LATI ?RDEM?REM Bronze, 7 September 1975 in a brown folder.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

The medal and the document

[Gordon Craig]

A B?NY?SZ SZOLG?LATI ?RDEM?REM Bronze in a red coloured folder.

Edited September 23, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

The award and the document

[Gordon Craig]

A B?NY?SZ SZOLG?LATI ?RDEM?REM in silver with a dark brown folder.

[Gordon Craig]

The award and the document

[Gordon Craig]

So here we have two bronze class medals awarded before the silver class was. Although it may not be visible in the photos, the miners emblem in the middle of each document is a different colour. The first one posted seems to be a brown colour, the second one a lighter colour of brown, and the third a bluish-green colour. Since the documents all bear the same reference number in the upper left hand corner this difference in colour doesn't indicate a new document design and may be due to different print runs, different printers etc. The different colours of the folders does not apear to have any special meaning either. Just what was handy at the time.

Regards,

Gordon

[Guest Rick Research]

:Cat-Scratch: This is both confusing and enlightening at the same time! So multiple classes of the same grade were possible....

would never have known this without the paperwork! :cheers:

[hunyadi]

Certainly possible - the man was probably a miner and worked in a dual capacity - the award could be given for (if memory serves right - reference marterial still in boxes) 10 year of service IN the mine or 15 years of serivce in mine related work (IE desk job - safety crew) - so its plausable that he served in a capacity which warranted a duplicate award. I would guess that the second bronze in 1978 was for his ten years in the grunt work as his silver is 10 years later - to get a silver (as I recall) in "other" work one would have to work for 30 years in that capacity.