Italy Italy - British Crimean medal to Sardinian Troups

[Elmar Lang]

A fine medal!

Surely, the medal was "improved" by the soldier himself, or by someone who had the medal, between 1856 onwards.

It would be very nice to see a detail of the naming!

Best wishes,

Enzo (E.L.)

[Veteran]

Hello Enzo

Thank you for your comment. I would very much like to send you pictures of the naming .... but I never quite managed to produce readable pictures of the sides of medals.  I will nevertheless do my best and show what I will get.

Veteran

[Elmar Lang]

That would be great, thank you.

On my side I will try to take some pictures of the naming on my British Crimea Medal (no bars) awarded to General Giovanni Durando.

Enzo

[claudio2574]

On 07/12/2009 at 18:11, Veteran said:

 

 

 

The exact number of Sardinian campaign medals for the Crimea is difficult to establish, but I have a feeling 6.000 would be very large number. 1.500 comes to my mind, but I cannot recall why. They very seldom show up at auction sales, much less I would say than the Al Valore Militare for the same campaign. One was sold in London in September (DNW auction sale, n°616) for £850 hammer price on an estimate of £300-400 !

 

British Crimea medals to the Sardes were often, if not always, officially engraved, exactly in the same maner the Sardinian Crimea medals were. They can be told that way, and there was one such medal in the same DNW sale (n°711). It was mistaken for a French recipient's because the ma who received it had a French sounding name (MESTRELLET) often found in Savoya, then still part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

 

This has been a very interesting post up to now, and I hope more information will be forthcoming for our mutual benefit.

 

Veteran

Hello. Recently a document has been found in the State Archive of Turin. It is a report from Lamarmora (the commander of the Sardinian Army) with many details about the expedition, including the number of medals given to the soldiers. The Navy is NOT included in the report.

In this report a total of 14198 British medals is recorded. Moreover, it is possible to read that 4316 Sardinian medals were given. This last figure has been an enigma for a very long time.

Here are the table with the numbers and the picture of the Sardinian Crimea medal, quite scarce

[lilo]

Claudio, can you post the missed photo ?