Turkey Turkish delight... and earlier than 1914...

[Chris Boonzaier]

I prefer these finer made pieces to those big silver clunkers... technically these are more of intrest to british collectors as they are more likely found in british groups than WW1 groups...

Can anyone give me a "Turkish medals 101" on exactly what they are?

The bigger one I bought in Cairo, the smaller one in Scutari.

The Turks seem to prefer the WW1 clunkers to these finer ones.

[Chris Boonzaier]

df

[Josef Rietveld]

Hi Chris, I don't know what is a '101' is. But I can identify your medjidies. The left one is a 4th Class (Officer rank, golden center medaillon with thugra), the right one a 5th Class (knights rank, silver center medaillon). From my point of view both decorations are european, probably french made. The belong to the socalled crimea-type and date from the 1850/60ies. The differences to later pieces: a small corpus with , in comparism to the total size, large center medaillon and the suspension. it ist made of gold. on the backside the jewellers scratched of the gold to reduce the production costs. the 5-ray-star is fixed to the halfmoon on ONLY 2 Points. (4 points with later pieces). NO turkish hallmarks like shah-mark (purity) or roayl mint-marks.

I add a picture of two commanders (3rd class) of the same type (one damaged, they are slightly different. one has timmy wholes in the rays of the corpus). The commander in between is a typical WW1-piece

haynau

Edited December 19, 2005 by haynau

[Josef Rietveld]

Details

haynau

[peter monahan]

Lovely pieces, Chris!

Often wished I could afford to collect enamelled orders and such just for the look. I met a collector who did just that: bought them by "look" and hung them in a small cabinet on his livingroom wall, no interest in the recipients or even their history. what a waste!

The last time I saw one of these Turkish thingies, years ago, was in a really marvellous group of "all foreign" awards to a British subject. The man had been the senior stationmaster at one of the London railway terminals, obviously the one where official delegations to Queen Victoria arrived, for 25 years. He had a minor British award for his faithfiul service (MBE?)and about 6 or 7 European orders, all junior grades, presumably handed to him by some functionary in each of a series of official parties as they exited their official trains.

Oddly, the only one I remember is the Turkish one - perhaps because I had to go look it up at the time. Really interesting group, representing the kind of "commerce" between nations one only reads about any more.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Lovely pieces, Chris!

Often wished I could afford to collect enamelled orders and such just for the look. I met a collector who did just that: bought them by "look" and hung them in a small cabinet on his livingroom wall, no interest in the recipients or even their history. what a waste!

I have a special "holiday" collection as a side line. I cleared it with the wife... I dont want souveniers, I want local medals. Usually i have to go scratching through markets etc. but most of the time I manage to turn something up.

Best

Chris

[peter monahan]

Chris

I'm with you on the "checking with wife" - mine is very understanding of my expensive tastes but... budget only has so much flex in it.

Your Turkish delights are very festive, for the "holiday collection", but do Scutari and cairo really count as "local" for you?

All the best of the season

Peter

[Chris Boonzaier]

Chris

I'm with you on the "checking with wife" - mine is very understanding of my expensive tastes but... budget only has so much flex in it.

Your Turkish delights are very festive, for the "holiday collection", but do Scutari and cairo really count as "local" for you?

All the best of the season

Peter

Hi,

I meant local, as in where we are on holiday.

the 4th class above cost me USD20 in Cairo, but as the wife would point out, we spent 3 solid days scratching through every market and junk pile to find it.

the 5th class I found in Scutari, I had 5 1914 EK2s with me and the turkish dealer was happy to trade,

so was I :-) there is something about picking up a Crimean era 5th class just a few hundred meters away from where the lady with the lamp did her thing.

Other holiday specials include british Egypt and Sudan medals picked up in Egypt, and a pile of French and spanish colonial stuff from morocco.

The Problem is... the wife is dead keen on South America, I try to tell her that militariawise North Africa is a better deal... but she just switches off the "logic" button. South America and Mexico are militaria dead ends unless you live there and have contacts :-(

[Stogieman]

Nice finds Chris... I never find anything this neat when we go away, but I still enjoy checking every place we go!

[Sal Williams]

Haynau,

"101" reffers to the beginner class in any subject. It's a cliche that can be used for subjects having nothing to do with school. one could say "I need to take gentleness101" meaning that he needs to learn how to be gentle and that he needs the absolute beginner class because he knows NOTHING about it.

[TerryG]

These are not really "my thing" but here's a shot of a shop window in Istanbul last year.

[Paul R]

WOW! I have no idea what they are yet I bet you wont get anything on the other side of that window for 20 dollars!

You have been doing very well at getting the great deals! Nice finds!

[Kartal]

I prefer these finer made pieces to those big silver clunkers... technically these are more of intrest to british collectors as they are more likely found in british groups than WW1 groups...

Can anyone give me a "Turkish medals 101" on exactly what they are?

The bigger one I bought in Cairo, the smaller one in Scutari.

The Turks seem to prefer the WW1 clunkers to these finer ones.

Hi

I am trying to find one similar to the big one to buy . They are very nice.

[Stogieman]

Very interesting to see the Soviet piece in the tray with Turkish and Persian pieces!

[Chris Boonzaier]

Tons of Soviet stuff. None with paperwork. I guess it was sold as scrap metal content to the Turkish bazaar folks... but they cottoned on quick and their are few if any bargains.