Advice for new collector please!?

[dannyhill86]

Hi Pals,

I have recently (i.e this week) started collected medals and would love some advice for someone like myself on where to begin and where to go to make sure im fairly treated....

I will be probably try to start by collecting a trio of service medals... what is the price range of something lke this? Obviously it has a massive range of price but i'm talking about cheap...im very poor!

Can anyone suggest where I can find out good reliable information on ww1 medal collecting?

Is there anything in particular that i should look for when collecting other than unit provenance?

Does a soldier's medal value go up according to wounds? rank? pow? kia? availability of service records? etc...

I would particularly like ny ball park figures relating to what i should be paying for a particular medal...

Any basic information would be brilliant and greatly appreciated!!

Many thanks

Dan

[14history18]

If you can hang on for a couple of days I will contact you again with some tips etc and good refeence books. I need to be at home though so can you wait until Thursday or Friday this week.

Regards, Dave

[Ken Lees]

Hi Dan,

For the very best advice you need to join the British Medals Forum - http://www.britishmedalforum.com/

You won't got far wrong if you tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience of the members there.

Ken

[Jim Strawbridge]

Q. I have recently (i.e this week) started collected medals and would love some advice for someone like myself on where to begin and where to go to make sure im fairly treated....

A. Ask yourself truthfully why you want to collect medals. Are you willing to go on for years adding to your collection as finance allows or is it a "one off". Virtually all established dealers will treat you fairly as they have a reputation to keep up. But very first of all try and get a connection to a particular theme. If your great grand-father served with a particular regiment that may be a good place to start. For you will find that you will be drawn into researching the names on the medals, their homelife, the campaigns that individual fought in and where he travelled in the world with his regiment.

Q. I will be probably try to start by collecting a trio of service medals... what is the price range of something lke this?

A. Trios you will unlikely get for less than £75. For this you will probably get a corps such as the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers or a Royal Navy group. This will comprise a 1914/5 star, a British War Medal and a Victory Medal. Line regiments will be above this, say £90, and Yeomanry and Officer groups considerable higher again. The 1914 star trio issued where the recipient was one of the first to get stuck in will be considerable more, too.

Q. Can anyone suggest where I can find out good reliable information on ww1 medal collecting?

A. There are basic books but this web site and that of the British War Forum would be a good place to start. And visit local military fairs and chat to the dealers and collectors there as there is nothing like meeting the people that know and handling the medals themselves.

Q. Is there anything in particular that i should look for when collecting other than unit provenance?

A. As I mentioned before, best to warm to a particular theme such as a regiment or naval rank that you can associate with.

Q. Does a soldier's medal value go up according to wounds? rank? pow? kia? availability of service records? etc...

A. Most definitely. Maybe not so much for wounds or POW although these will command a modest premium. But kia will triple the value (as will groups to officers) and in the case of 1st July 1916 kias the prices will be even higher as there is a very keen group of collectors who collect these.

The best advice I can give you is to decide the theme. If a line regiment strongly consider buying the Regimental History to that regiment. Nearly all regiments have one and there are plenty of military book dealers around. This will likely cost in the region of £50 upwards but will be money well spent. Then, when you buy a medal you will be able to work out where your medal recipients were at any particular time, what actions he was likely to have been involved in and move you away from wanting to own shiny medals for their own sake and to honour the man to whom they were issued.

[Nulli Secundus]

Good advice Jim.

You must also be prepared to spend more and more money chasing medals that you "must have" and if you are in any kind of relationship never tell your partner how much you are spending on medals if she finds out she will "hit the roof" and insist you sell them to go holiday or something tedious.

My girlfriend thinks ALL First World War medals cost £8 - £12... including 1914 Stars!

QSA 's apparently cost £25

(Obviously I have left instructions with my brother should I meet an untimely end and my collection is to be disposed of)

Joking aside...find a theme and read, read, read.

[River97]

Dan,

For all of us who collect medals, I suppose getting the latest edition of the Medal Yearbook is on the list somewhere.

For what it is, very cheap indeed and the 2011 edition is not that old. They come out every September.

Token Publishing are the ones that do it. Link here

Cheers Andy.

[rewbarbel]

Hi Dan,

Some good sound advice from the above.

You could try ebay. They have medals listed every day and they do tend to be cheaper than a lot of dealers. I have seen 14 -15 trio's to the ASC, RFA, etc. go for about £40 -£50. Shame really when you consider the sacrifice that these people made. I would say though, make sure that you research each recipient as best you can - don't give up to easily. It makes your hobby much more than just a load of medals in a draw (beware of "back of the draw syndrome", where you put the medals in a draw and never get them out. I know one or two collector's, who buy medals and won't let anyone see them).

I wish you luck with your new passion, but please don't forget these brave young men, sometimes boys, and women, sometimes girls (medals to female's always command a premium) .

Andy

[rewbarbel]

I meant to add, avoid buying erased medals to complete a trio. there seems to be some people who are buying odd medals and scrubbing the name off in an attempt to make a fast buck. For some reason blank medals seem to command a good premium. Also beware modern copies being sold as original.

Good luck

Andy

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

Try to "handle" as many medals as you can,@ Fairs.dealers shops,etc;visit local collections & museums to study them if possible,there is no substitute for experience & you will continue to learn as you collect,read AS MUCH AS YOU CAN About the subject,as knowledge is power if you can recognise the unusual you can obtain that elusive gem with luck,there are various avenues of collecting,"themed collections" [ie those to a particular unit,division,brigade,rank,service,etc];"general collections",[ie; "one of a kind"/a "Trio" /Pair/WW1 group"],which is probabl;y where most of us start/started before we begin to "specialise" & this gives you more scope with regard to the variety of awards one can collect,a Regimental collection by its nature will often become limited & repetitive,it all depends on where you are going with it.

Never collect as a means to become rich,if you are as you say "poor " now be prepared to remain that way for the rest of your nartural!!once the Medalism bug has entered your bloodstream there is no known cure you are doomed!! Good Luck & happy collecting, it jhas kept me almost sane against all types of adversity over the past 50 years!!

HB

[ph0ebus]

I would also add:

If you aren;t already, start offering to pick up the mail now. This way you can intercept 'suspicious' packages before they get on anyone's radar.

All for the greater good.

-Daniel

[WilliamRev]

I fell in love with Great War medals as a teenager, and paid rather too much for a few at first, before I worked out exactly where and when to buy wisely. To start with I paid 50p for a Victory medal in 1981 (a good buy), then £10 for a 14/15 star to a Field Artillery driver in 1983 (over-priced at the time) which I sold recently for £20 - (about right).

I would advise anyone looking to collect medals to buy a few, enjoy them, make mistakes by paying far too much sometimes (nearly everyone does this!), learn lessons; and find your own field to collect - there are WW1 units whose medals go really very cheaply so you may choose those (Royal Medical Corps, Labour Corps, Royal Artillery): or perhaps your local regiments, or units on your local war memorial.

There are plenty of excellent medals for sale on e-b*y, but please please INSIST that the seller is showing you photos of the actual medals and ribbons - there are several regular sellers (no names no pack drill) who show a generic photo of a pristine medal with six inches of ribbon, and when your medal arrives in the post it is damaged (ie highly polished and worn) and perhaps with barely an inch of ribbon.

Just thoughts - I am by no means a medal expert

William

[4thGordons]

I am not a medal collector - but I just did a check and discovered I have a couple of dozen so perhaps I should revise my self-perception! There is nothing rare - they are all pairs and trios but along with all the sage advice above I would suggest that (as Jim Strawbridge indicated) a THEME is key to developing a collection, otherwise you are just amassing examples...and I think there is a difference between the two.

Mine (with a couple of exceptions of medals I was given or found in junk sales cheaply and couldn't leave!) are all related to the Gordon Highlanders, but as suggested above - particular names, related to particular battles, collecting examples of different regiments (the opposite of focusing on one), casualties - there are any number of themes that might be adopted - whatever strikes your fancy or you feel a connection with that is what I would go with.

Best of luck,

Chris

[River97]

Dan,

Just to add a bit more. As an example you could collect medals to your Great Great Grand Fathers Regiment. Also, the medals you collect don't have to have anything 'special'.

What I mean by that is, by coincidence, I purchased my 150th medal this afternoon. There is not one gallantry award amongst them. Orders and decorations are expensive and there are enough collectors out there buying them without me joining in. I do have a group with a MSM, however, these were handed down to me from my late Grand Pa.

Attached are a couple of examples of what I have done. The first has a 1914 Star trio, the MSM group of five, a 1914-15 Star trio, four pairs to different units and a Mercantile Marine pair.

The second has each of the WW1 campaign medals plus six WW1/WW2 combination groups of four, making sure that each was different. I have also done the same for my WW2 medals. Once they were full I came up with another theme of collecting single campaign medals to each of the first 24 battalions of the London Regiment. This came from my Great Grand Pa serving with the 60th London Division.

So, as examples, your collection can be quite diverse, yet still have a theme.

Cheers Andy.

[Arnhem44]

My girlfriend thinks ALL First World War medals cost £8 - £12... including 1914 Stars!

QSA 's apparently cost £25

(Obviously I have left instructions with my brother should I meet an untimely end and my collection is to be disposed of)

I would also add:

If you aren;t already, start offering to pick up the mail now. This way you can intercept 'suspicious' packages before they get on anyone's radar.

All for the greater good.

-Daniel

And I thought I was the only one telling porkies to pass under the radar,ah bless them what they don't know won't hurt them.

Brendan

[ph0ebus]

And I thought I was the only one telling porkies to pass under the radar,ah bless them what they don't know won't hurt them.

Brendan

I would qualify that I have every confidence that my lovely bride is equally skilled in the art of misdirection (i.e., where did *that* new outfit come from?), so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

-Daniel

[Arnhem44]

Andy would you mind me asking where you got those frames from?,are they bought from a shop or made specially?.They really look well with the way you have them displayed.Guy's what would be the best way to display a large amount of medals with limited space,mostly singles and pairs and in the region of a couple of hundred.I've played with the idea now of having a purposely built cabinet made with narrow drawers to keep them in however this would mean they would be tucked away.Any ideas?

Regards

Brendan

[Nigel Marshall]

I don't have my collection on display. I used to have it in a glass fronted display frame similar to a large version of what a dealer might have on the table at a fair. As the collection grew I had to take it off the wall because it was too heavy and the frame was pulling itself apart and then I ran out of space in the frame.

I now have my collection in a bought chest of drawers which came from a well known Scandanavian home furnishing company. There are six shallow drawers and each of the drawers has been modified to allow for two levels in each and I have the medals laid out on those.

I now collect to the territorial battalions of a specific regiment, but I retain those medals I have to the regualr and service battalions simply because I have had them for many years (30 years of my 38 years on this planet in some cases). Within my collection because I have different drawers I am able to further specialise in how the collection is laid out. On one level I can have my family medals, comprising my Great Granddad, both Granddads, a Great Uncle and my own. Then on the next level I have my casualty groups. One the next, the 1/x battalions, on the next, the 2/x battalions. There is a level for groups which include medals from other campaigns or have decorations and a drawer for broken groups and singles. I also have a level where the medal groups I am currently working on are kept and I find that this set up works well for me and crucially, I still have a fair amount of space left to carry on adding to the collection as the medals come up coincidental with me having money to spend on them. I would say that is once a flood, but that might not convey the intended sense of scarcity that it should just now!

Oh, and in my own opinion, I think you should tell your other half what you're spending. It will pay dividends in the end. Honesty is always the best policy!

My wife knows exactly what my collection is worth, and she also has a good idea of what to do with it if I should die suddenly. She also knows what price I'd pay for medals if she sees medals while shes out and about at a car boot sale or the like.

I can't add much to the advice already given about how to ease yourself into collecting medals because it has all been said. I will expand on one point though. That of dealers looking after you. A good dealer will always treat you fairly and it is important that collectors strike up a good business relationship with the dealer because there is a mutual dependancy there. The dealer knows that you will go elsewhere if you rumble them trying to fleece you, but by the same token the dealer will not want to be bothered with your wants list if you aren't prepared to pay to going rate. It is, after all, this that puts the dinner on the table.

Now, one last thing, enjoy it and it will stay with you for many a year. The last line of Harry's post is testament to that.

Cheers,

Nigel

[auchonvillerssomme]

All good advice but I think HarryBetts hit the nail, visit as many fairs as possible, ask to hold the medals and examine them to become familiar with them. If you collect to one specialised subject then you can expect to be in for the long haul. I would suggest initially look at researchable medals to your name or even mothers maiden name if relatively unusual.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

...I now have my collection in a bought chest of drawers which came from a well known Scandanavian home furnishing company. There are six shallow drawers and each of the drawers has been modified to allow for two levels in each and I have the medals laid out on those.

Nigel

Ideal especially if you have the luxury of a Spare Room to designate "A Medal Room"... One can find old display cases a la '70s very cheaply @ local general auction sales {Ive paid between 50p ~ £1..50 @ our local one for a number of them as no one wants them but with glass sliding doors {the anti slide Locks are the expensive bit!!} & they are ideal to fit boards for display into "at the slope"

[River97]

Andy would you mind me asking where you got those frames from?,are they bought from a shop or made specially?.They really look well with the way you have them displayed.Guy's what would be the best way to display a large amount of medals with limited space,mostly singles and pairs and in the region of a couple of hundred.I've played with the idea now of having a purposely built cabinet made with narrow drawers to keep them in however this would mean they would be tucked away.Any ideas?

Regards

Brendan

Brendan,

I purchased the frames from Ikea a couple of months ago, cost $50.00 Australian each. They measure 50 cm x 50 cm and are about 4 cm deep. I have glued corflute (plastic cardboard) to the backing board and then attached the fabric. This allows me, after court mounting the medals, to attach them to the backing with sewing pins. I also have a Nobo display cabinet measuring 90 cm high x 122 cm wide, once again about 4 cm deep, also comes with brackets to mount to a wall. These have more than doubled in price over the last five years (around $1000.00 each now) which is the reason I went for the frames. The photo below gives an idea of the size.

Cheers Andy.

[robins2]

On 19/11/2010 at 18:42, River97 said:

Brendan,

I purchased the frames from Ikea a couple of months ago, cost $50.00 Australian each. They measure 50 cm x 50 cm and are about 4 cm deep. I have glued corflute (plastic cardboard) to the backing board and then attached the fabric. This allows me, after court mounting the medals, to attach them to the backing with sewing pins. I also have a Nobo display cabinet measuring 90 cm high x 122 cm wide, once again about 4 cm deep, also comes with brackets to mount to a wall. These have more than doubled in price over the last five years (around $1000.00 each now) which is the reason I went for the frames. The photo below gives an idea of the size.

Cheers Andy.

Nice display, I didn't see the collection posted here

Regards

Bob R

[Arnhem44]

Andy thank you kindly for the info on the frames and how to display the medals within them,the display looks really well and thanks for posting them up.I really must do something now with my own medals and will now have a look at these frames at ikea.Lads a big thank you to all of ye for you're advice on what one should do about starting collecting,I myself am only collecting medals with a few years now and still learning things as I go along so you're advice on collecting is I'm sure very welcome to many.

Regards

Brendan