'Bluejacket' Medal for prize firing (1903)

[Egypt]

I thought I’d share this little nautical oddity with others on the forum - it’s a special medal awarded by the “The Blue Jacket & Coastguard Gazette” for naval gunnery (1900-1904) and presented to the best gun crew in the British Fleet Annual Prize Shooting competition. Apparently, Capt Percy Scott was behind the initial idea, and from 1904 onwards the RN adopted it officially with the introduction of the official Naval Good Shooting Medal.

The medal that I have (passed down to me from my Father-in-law) is 48 mm wide, made of bronze with two ribbon bars, one marked HMS Majestic 1903 and the other (with a naval crown at its centre) simply states ‘prize crew’. It was awarded to GC King who was a member of the 6” guns crew. – see below.

The only thing I don’t like about it is that the engraving on the rim has subsequently been added to, with the rating of the recipient somewhat ineptly inserted, so that the words ’First Class’ appear to the left of the name, and the words ‘Seamen (sic) Gunner’ to the right of the name. The entire wording around the rim therefore reads ‘First Class CG KING Seamen Gunner’.

Would an unofficial medal such as this have any strong appeal to serious RN medal collectors?  (I understand that only some 32 of these were ever presented).

And does anyone know any more about these medals than I’ve already stated above?

Michael

PS My apologies in advance to the Moderators if I have posted this under a wrong topic heading - only I’m still relatively new to the forum.

[Mervyn Mitton]

Michael  -  I can't remember if we welcomed you to GMIC  -  but you are very welcome. I've always found the shear number of shooting and athletic medallions quite confusing  - gold and silver they never seemed to stop producing them.   Some are indeed very collectable and I would put this one for heavy ships' guns right at the top.   What you are showing , of course is the standard medallion given to crews  -  I wonder what the main trophy would have looked like  -  and where it is today  ?   Mervyn

Edited July 5, 2015 by Mervyn Mitton