Kai Meyer - history/whereabouts

[misiu]

Hi,

 

I was not successful to find any information about Kai Meyer from Holte, Danmark in the internet.

 

I have a picture of him sitting in a room full of awards hanging on the wall.

 

Did someone meet him, is there a biography of him, what happend to his medals/decorations and is there a list of his awards existing (especially those hanging on the wall)?

 

Regards

Dete

[larsb001]

When I was 15 back in 1976 he appeared in a Danish magazine which had an article about him and his collection. I had gained some interest in collecting Orders & Medals but had no clue of where to go and find these items. The article made it clear that he lived in the area where I grew up, so I took a phonebook (yes, those were the times) and found out that there were 6 people living in my area by that name. Then I took my bicycle and went from address to address, rang the doorbell and asked the simple question "Do your husband collects Orders?". At the third address I got a "Ahh, yes, why" and after having explained myself I was invited in.

Kai Meyer got me started, we became friends and I have spend many many hours in that basement. I have really learned alot from him, he took me under his wings and he explained carefully what to look for, tricks and hints, and all that stuff.

Today I have a quite extensive collection of miniature decorations, the very first miniature I got was bought from him at a very resonnable price, this one:

 

The picture you have must have been from the 1960ies, when I got to know him he had a much larger collection.

He died many years ago and his collection is sold, but you will still see items from his collection appearing in various auctions with a proper reference, interesting enough I spotted this one in a French auction some months ago:

 

 

This is a plate with the Swedish Order of the North Star, still mounted on the plate from his celler, if you look at the picture you can see that his entire collection was mounted this way, plate by plate.

Some older collectors would find him a bit controvercy, but that's another story.

Hope this helps, Lars

[Trooper_D]

... and it's stories like this which, for me, make GMIC a 'must read'! Thanks Lars. 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Trooper_D

[misiu]

Thank you very much for this private story.

Having such a big collection there really should exist an inventory list - I really would like to know what (rare) Finnish medals had been in that fascinating collection.

[Graf]

On 09/01/2020 at 10:34, larsb001 said:

When I was 15 back in 1976 he appeared in a Danish magazine which had an article about him and his collection. I had gained some interest in collecting Orders & Medals but had no clue of where to go and find these items. The article made it clear that he lived in the area where I grew up, so I took a phonebook (yes, those were the times) and found out that there were 6 people living in my area by that name. Then I took my bicycle and went from address to address, rang the doorbell and asked the simple question "Do your husband collects Orders?". At the third address I got a "Ahh, yes, why" and after having explained myself I was invited in.

Kai Meyer got me started, we became friends and I have spend many many hours in that basement. I have really learned alot from him, he took me under his wings and he explained carefully what to look for, tricks and hints, and all that stuff.

Today I have a quite extensive collection of miniature decorations, the very first miniature I got was bought from him at a very resonnable price, this one:

 

The picture you have must have been from the 1960ies, when I got to know him he had a much larger collection.

He died many years ago and his collection is sold, but you will still see items from his collection appearing in various auctions with a proper reference, interesting enough I spotted this one in a French auction some months ago:

 

 

This is a plate with the Swedish Order of the North Star, still mounted on the plate from his celler, if you look at the picture you can see that his entire collection was mounted this way, plate by plate.

Some older collectors would find him a bit controvercy, but that's another story.

Hope this helps, Lars

Thank you for sharing your story