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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Medal Collectors


Tim Brecknock

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I see that there are a lot of medal collectors on this forum, and I am one myself of almost 20 years.

I am just wondering how the "non collector" views us?

Dont spare the cander. I am keen to know!

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Tim,

An emotive subject.

As a non-collector with two Family Trios I have no interest in further collecting.

In the past the original recipients,sold,gave or threw away their medals.If you buy medals legitimately I cannot complain.

I can imagine though, the trauma if you possess a Forum Member's Family Medals that were disposed of years ago and the Family now want to retrieve.

I would suggest you do not give personal details of the Medals you possess as this has caused strife on the Forum in the past.

George

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Tim,

  An emotive subject.

  As a non-collector with two Family Trios I have no interest in further collecting.

  In the past the original recipients,sold,gave or threw away their medals.If you buy medals legitimately I cannot complain.

  I can imagine though, the trauma if you possess a Forum Member's Family Medals that were disposed of years ago and the Family now want to retrieve.

  I would suggest you do not give personal details of the Medals you possess as this has caused strife on the Forum in the past.

George

A very good point, but you would be surprised how many families are willing nay eager to sell great grandfathers medals often for not that great an amount. I think its sad but I feel we are looking after them. When I have personal details photos etc the medals take on more of an attachment. I cannot trade such family medals I adopt them. Seem a little silly but its true. Of all the medals I want its my grandfathers I look in vain for. Anyway Im sure most collectors would consider returning medals to a family if wanted, I guess its the costs that are a problem. Gareth

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I am just wondering how the "non collector" views us?

I don't collect. In fact, I gave my grandfather's medals to the regimental museum some years ago.

I don't have a "view" as such. Your hobby is your hobby. It harms no-one, and provides interest to many and profit to some. It is not for me to comment on how you spend your time and I wouldnt presume to do so.

John

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I am not a collector.

In my opinion most collectors lovingly research and care for the medals 'in their charge' which would appear to be more than some families of recipients do.

I would prefer medals top be in a collectors care rather being lost or off loaded at house clearance and the like.

Dave

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It's a question I have often pondered, especially in the light of the many 'relic' debates in the past and the way in which said collectors are vilified. Is the way some collectors 'hoover' up medals so different? In one respect only one man is entitled to and has earned the right to custody of that medal and that is the recipient.

However, as pointed out above the only reason medals ever leave the awarded person's family is because the family have no interest in them or no-one is left to inherit them.

As with all collectibles, better they are researched, cherished and valued rather than lost for ever. We are all custodians in the present, that is all.

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Not the only reason my friend.........

What has to be remembered is this.....most families after WW1 didnt have any money, all valuables were taken to pawn brokers..........the pawn brokers would have buckets of medals (no exaggeration there)........in fact the pawn brokers in the east midlands would only take trios if they were attached to a waist coat because the medals were of such little value.........and 'knockers' would only buy gallantry awards. When you have children to feed out go your valuables.

At the end of the day a medal is just a chunk of metal and no where near as great as the man.

You dont need medals to remember a WW1 veteran. For example a silver vesta case with the mans initials engraved on it, which he carried through out the war could hold an equal if not more significance than the medals themselves. The same could be said about photographs.

Steve.

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My view?

Custodians when it's done for 'love'.

Parasites if it's all about profit.

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To me it would feel wrong to want to collect medals from other families.

If i came across any , for any reason , my project would be to try to return them to the rightful family.

Roland.

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Not the only reason my friend.........

What has to be remembered is this.....most families after WW1 didnt have any money, all valuables were taken to pawn brokers..........the pawn brokers would have buckets of medals (no exaggeration there)........in fact the pawn brokers in the east midlands would only take trios if they were attached to a waist coat because the medals were of such little value.........and 'knockers' would only buy gallantry awards. When you have children to feed out go your valuables.Steve.

It's a fair point...my friend.

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If i came across any , for any reason , my project would be to try to return them to the rightful family

Fair point, but, aren't most medals on the market because the family didn't want them at the time? Now, of course, it's a different story.

If the family didn't sell them i wouldn't have a hobby, in fact none of us would.

Isn't it better to see them pride of place in someone's collection rather than sat in the bottom of a drawer for years on end and forgotten about.

There are however many other views..............

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OK Anthony ( or any medal collector ) a small question.

In your collection you have a very smart MM trio which you brought some years ago.It comes to your attention that the daughter of the said man was still alive but very much down on her luck and unable to afford to make you an offer.She hasn`t seen these medals for many ,many years and would love to have them back in the family before she passed away.

What would you do ?

Always wondered this !

Roland.

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WW1 history can be very difficult at times............

You might be holding you relatives medals but never know it. What I mean by this is many of the men who were my relations who served do not share my surname. These other surnames as time goes by are often forgotten in families.

This is the reason why we research our Family Trees I guess, but there is a huge percentage of the population that dont know who their relatives were who took part in the Great War.

Steve.

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OK Anthony ( or any medal collector ) a small question.

In your collection you have a very smart MM trio which you brought some years ago.It comes to your attention that the daughter of the said man was still alive but very much down on her luck and unable to afford to make you an offer.She hasn`t seen these medals for many ,many years and would love to have them back in the family before she passed away.

What would you do ?

Always wondered this !

Roland.

Roland,

I once bought a Victory medal to a casualty off Ebay. 2 months later his BWM appeared on Ebay too. I was out bid and the medal fetched a daft amount of money, so i emailed the winner to see what their interest was. The winner was the soldiers Niece.

I sold the Victory medal to her so the two could be united again.

The question you ask is a good one, not too sure what i would do either in that case, awkward one that!! :)

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Roland,

The question you ask is a good one, not too sure what i would do either in that case, awkward one that!! :)

Thanks for being honest.Bet 99.9% of collectors would hang on to the medals.

Or am i being harsh.

Roland.

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I dont view myself as a collector but as a guardian. They are not mine as such, I simply have paid a premium to look after them and keep them in good order until the time arrives when someone else will take on that responsibility.

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I personally feel that medal collecting is about keeping the memory of these men alive.

About seven or eight years ago I purchased a 1914 Star and Victory medal from a car boot sale for £2 each. I felt extremely lucky to have picked up such a bargain but even more so upon searching the CWGC site and finding out that the recipient was killed in 1914 and is commemorated on the Plogsteert memorial.

I feel it is sad that the medals of a man who gave up his life for his country ended up on a Sunday morning car boot sale amongst the rest of the bric a brac being sold.

At least his memory is now alive again.

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Andrew Hesketh said:
Parasites if it's all about profit.

If they are true collectors then profit doesn't enter into the equation,you buy the medals,as you would any Antique or Collectable because of your interest in it & its origins,though with medals as opposed to most other things the personal aspect is more apparent,as you generally do not intend moving items bought for your collection on for the forseeable future there is no profit

People who buy purely for investment tend to get their fingers burned very early on,as they rarely know their subject.& their "reputations" tend to preceed them very quickly.

With regard to returning items to Families,this is where I am afraid I beg to differ,as previously stated & is obvious from the numerous listings on ebay,examples on Flog It,Cash In The Attic;Etc;,some families{& some Families simply die out there being No NoK} have little or no interest in Grandad's War & would rather spend a couple of hundred quid on a Carpet or £60.00 towards a night out in the City,etc;& consequently have disposed of their heirlooms with little or no thought.only in the Money they will raise.

Having flogged off the family silver & it been purchased legitimately & @ market price by a Collector; why should he/she be villified if in the far distant future, by a second cousin 8 times removed of the original Recipient who decides that they would like them back; The Collector having spent 30 years researching & caring for them{when if there were no collectors they could quite easily have been dumped unceremoniously in with the Potato peelings & Baked Bean tins,into the Dusty Bin! {I have even bought medals in the past from a Dustman who found such items on a quite regular basis,so it did & probably still does happen!} he/she decides that they want no part of it,{after all who is to say that the next generation,of said cousin may then decide that they would rather have a Playstation 7 & World cup 2050 Game than a fusty group of Medals his grandfather re~bought in the 2005s & the cycle starts all over again.

With regard to Pawnbrokers, I have after 45 years of Collecting only ever had two medals {& only seen about twice that},both Victorian that bore Pawnbrokers marks {they tended to scratch their personal code[eg:R//= ]across the flat surface beside the Queen's Face}, so I suspect that many of those were scrapped for bullion;as few are seen today with such marks.

We Cant Win! :blink::lol:

Edited by HarryBettsMCDCM
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My view?

Custodians when it's done for 'love'.

Parasites if it's all about profit.

I'm not a collector, but there is ONE set and only one that I am after. A 1914 trio to my Great Grandfather.

My view of collectors tends to be that of Andrew's, but then I wouldn't be so polite about the "for profit" people.

But then I am a little biased on this when It comes to medals, after unwittingly getting involved in a "I've got your Great Grandfather's medals and you can't have them, nah nah, nah na nah nah" type situation at the back end of last year.

Stephen

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For every positive there is a negative---for every action there is a re-action

Your asking the wrong question.

As regards keeping that mans memory alive--you are only doing that if you display that mans war record publically obtained from his medals, you are keeping nothing alive to no one if it's tucked away in your cuboard somewhere

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As a non collector I can honestly say that I was rather amazed at my first Black Country night out meeting to find people who cared so much about bringing medals (normaly South Staffs Rgt) back to their 'home'

I don't wish to steal anyones thunder here but the phrase that put collecting into perspective for me was this

"It's not the medal on the man. Its the man on the medal that counts"

All the collecting members that attend the BCNO meetings have obtained the medals, researched the recipiant and intend to keep those medals/awards within their home county for as long as possible.

In my eyes if all collectors do their collecting for the same reasons then its all OK by me (not that my view matters a jot) If that makes sense.

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But then I am a little biased ...after unwittingly getting involved in a "I've got your Great Grandfather's medals and you can't have them, nah nah, nah na nah nah" type situation at the back end of last year.

Astonishing! What a shame they're not held by someone like Anthony, whose gesture was clearly the right one.

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Astonishing! What a shame they're not held by someone like Anthony, whose gesture was clearly the right one.

My thoughts then and now.

Stephen

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Anyway Im sure most collectors would consider returning medals to a family if wanted, I guess its the costs that are a problem. Gareth

Absolutely, read my thread 'Needle in an ebay stack'. The guy who sold it removed the listing for me and possibly short changed himself in the process, he didnt have to and I would have paid? I have a number of medals with my surname and wouldnt think twice about passing them on to a relative. After all if you didnt care you wouldnt collect them. Would you?

jamie

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About seven or eight years ago I purchased a 1914 Star and Victory medal from a car boot sale for £2 each. I felt extremely lucky to have picked up such a bargain but even more so upon searching the CWGC site and finding out that the recipient was killed in 1914 and is commemorated on the Plogsteert memorial.

You mean that it was a stroke of luck for you that this man died all those years ago, prematurely, possibly in agony and far, far from home?? No offence intended to Liam as an individual, but this is quite a common idea among medal collectors - the idea of being especially lucky if you get a medal cheap and it turns out that the man named on the medal died. And the less you paid for the medal, the luckier you are. I must explain that I don't collect medals myself so perhaps this is why I don't understand this part of the hobby, but it seems more to with financial gain than guardianship.

Tom

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