Honoris Crux Silver Anomaly?

[Wessel Gordon]

I bought a Honoris Crux Silver (1975) miniature on auction yesterday and on reading up on about it on Wikipedia I spotted an interesting anomaly. According to Wikipedia The HCS (1975) is succeeded in the order of precedence by the Van Riebeeck Decoration and not the ordinary Honoris Crux (1975) as it's clearly stated on page 33 in Barron et al's book about South African Decorations.

A mere case of someone not getting their facts straight before posting online?

 

[Arthur R]

The Wikipedia article is correct.  This is one of many anomalies in official tables of precedence that have been compiled over the past thirty years or so. 

The problem may partly arise from the fact that no official table was published between 1967 and 1993, and the SADF, SAP et al were left to make their own rules.

A draft SADF 'Proposed Order of Precedence' dated 1979 lists these decoration in the following order : Van Riebeeck Decoration - HC Silver - HC (apparently both 1952 and 1975). 

A draft table drawn up by or for the SAP in 1990 ranked them as DVR - HC 1952 - HCS - HC 1975.

However, the official table gazetted in 1993 ranked them as  : HC 1952 - HCS - DVR - HC 1975.  This was carried over to the 2005 table, which is the most recent.

 

 

 

 

[Wessel Gordon]

Arthur,

Thanks for the reply.

Since the Barron et al book was published in 1986 it fits right into that roughly 30 year gap you mentioned. Just weird that 3 senior officers (and I guess a bunch of unnamed research assistants) picked up on the anomaly.

I do not have the Wolraad Woltemade Decoration in my collection so in my case the Honoris Crux Silver and the Honoris Crux would be situated next to each other.