Belgium Medals of the Crown Order

[TacHel]

Excellent! Thanks! :cheers:

[VC89]

This is a view of my lifetime collections with all differend makers of this medal , as you can see i have only a few silver ones and no bronze ones .

Is there a way to see when a medal is from a different maker or is it just lookking at both medals and trying to see some differeces?

Also: is there a way to determine the maker of a medal when you don't have the original box? (book, webstie, ...)

[dcollect]

i look at the many differences between the medals , sometimes there are big differences between them due to other makers and sometimes there is a very small difference because of the same maker but other time period ,

without the boxes it is hard to tell for shure ,

i do not know any site where i can find some more information ,

if i have a few years spare time i can make a site

thanks , bjorn .

[TacHel]

Got one!

Now to find a bronze one...

[Megan]

Blatent plug: if you are interested in the variations of the Order of the Crown medals - different manufacturers, French or bilingual motto, etc. - get yourself a copy of Antti Ruokonen's book The Spirit of the Lion: Orders of Belgium which has copious details and illustrations of the different types!

Antti is our very own Blitz here on GMIC, if you didn't happen to know.

[Graf]

Hi,

Just small update on the topic

I do not know whether I am lucky or simply more persistent on my search..however I have already 4 Bronze medals 2 French only and 2 Bilingual

You can see differend shades of bronze and different form of th crowns

Best

Graf

[g_deploige]

here a nice miniature of the golden medal of the order of the crown

[TacHel]

Finally got myself one of each. I noticed the gold medal has the Dutch writing on top in lieu of at the bottom... Simply means a Dutch speaking recipient I gather?

[Megan]

No, Frank - it means a post-1951 issue when all the Belgian orders went bi-lingual.

Language is a matter of some contention in Belgium, the Flemish speakers have been slighted historically but matters are improving with the language being recognised officially alongside French.

[TacHel]

Megs, I meant the Dutch is at the top versus the bottom like the other post 1951 variants I have. I know the pre 1951 ones were uni lingual French.

[Megan]

Note to self: Do not post before you have woken up in the morning

Possibly an unofficial variant - Antti's book makes no mention of a bi-lingual medal with Dutch at the top (but does have an unofficial Dutch-only one!), nor is there provision for such in the regulations.

[Graf]

Dear Members,

Jut to let you know that i am selling Two Medals of the Order of the Crown on Ebay.UK

Silver and Bronze -Both Flamish and French Text

Graf

[farmer]

Hello all,

This is quite interesting topic, sorry I am so late to the 'party' here.

Guy, excellent mini - probably the best I've ever seen of the medal, congratulations!!

Megan, the Dutch/French language placement on the post 51 type was not clearly specified in the statutes (not that I could tell while reading through the 'mess') so it really was left up to the manufacturers. Walravens's pieces tend to have the Dutch language on top quite a bit, especially in the Order of Leopold II, some of the newer Wolfers's had that too. Dutch language only inscriptions were not authorized in the Statutes though. I asked this question at DeGreef's shop in the 1990's (production manager), he told me that they make whatever recipient wants in regards to language - as long as the main design stays the same (which is odd for they are changing the design).

Belgoman, I really like your post explaining the reasoning for the lower numbers of Bronze and Silver medals (similar case with Palms). My research also indicates that earlier awards in bronze were frowned upon by the Belgians and normally given to the Congolese and others.

VC89, to catalogue and actually recognize each medal by maker would be a very interesting albeit complicated and time consuming project. Yes, boxes of issue can help (providing those were the actual cases as provided by the maker). Crown styles can help somewhat but due to many sub-contracting issues would probably not be 100% accurate. Considering that Wolfers and DeVigne Hart were probably the earliest (Belgian) manufacturers of the Order is a starting point. Quality of both manufacturers is quite good. Both firms continued on for quite some time though and to determine age can only be done by tedious comparisons of many examples on hand. I have 36 medals (in all 3 grades) - and still I have very hard time cataloguing these. 2 of my earliest DeVigne Hart's came with box that has a particular impressed trim to the edge (silver and gold medal, also gold palms). One boxed silver by Wolfers is of very good quality but very similar to much later example by DeGreef wich was probably made by Wolfers but distributed by DeGreef's shop. In my opinion, those of cruder quality were made by Fisch, Fonson and a couple of other smaller manufacturers (pre 51 type). Those post 1951 would be so hard to pinpoint and catalogue by maker, with probably 10 different firms distributing those. 2 of my post 1951 medals have silver hallmark and

'FIBRU''s mark to the rim so this was easy to tell, otherwise it is anyone's guess.