"No more medals to be pawned"

[Paul Nixon]

I've just posted a short extract from an interview I conducted with James Goodson, an old RFA regular I met in 1988: http://worldwar1veterans.blogspot.com/2011/11/james-goodson.html

He stated that so many men pawned their medals as soon as they were issued, that the government issued a directive stating that no more medals were to be pawned. This doesn't sound right to me. Has anybody else come across this supposed edict?

Paul

[Guest]

Hi Paul. Can't say I have heard of that. I had a quick look in Hansard and only came up with This

Cheers Mike

[John_Hartley]

This doesn't sound right to me.

Doesnt sound at all right. The government can't legislate that someone can't sell things they own.

[centurion]

I wonder if this is not another myth. If most soldiers tried to pawn their medals as soon as they got them they probably wouldn't be able to as their value would drop to near zero (at least in the case of the ones everybody got). and the pawnbrokers wouldn't accept them as collateral.

[sotonmate]

Silver surely would have held it's value. On weight a troy ounce (1.1.ounces avoirdupois) would be worth about 5 shillings at the time of the BW Medal issues,even though the pawny is unlikely to have given full value for it.

[centurion]

Silver surely would have held it's value. On weight a troy ounce (1.1.ounces avoirdupois) would be worth about 5 shillings at the time of the BW Medal issues,even though the pawny is unlikely to have given full value for it.

Was the BW pure silver? Or a sliver alloy worth much less?

[Ron Clifton]

The WW1 BWM was of the same silver content as the contemporary coinage up to 1946, unlike the WW2 BWM which was an alloy with, I think, no silver content.

I think that any prohibition on pawning or selling medals can only have applied to serving members of the armed forces. They were issued to be worn on their uniforms and, like any item of kit, had to be kept in good repair and produced at inspections. The Hansard extract in post #2 seems to bear out this interpretation.

On discharge, a soldier wasw allowed to keep some items of kit (boots, service dress, "necessaries") and they then became his property. Medals were included in this category. The rest, including most of his equipment and of course rifles etc, had to be handed in. A serving soldier was no more entitled to pawn or sell his medals than he was his cap badge, or his stripes if he was an NCO.

Ron

[centurion]

50% then so about 2s6d at best (and probably a lot less in a buyers market)

[Paul Nixon]

Thanks for your reponses one and all.

[regimentalrogue]

There is also the possibility that some serving soldiers used their medal(s) as collateral in what was basically a "pay day loan" scheme run by the pawnbroker, where each expected the medal to be bought back after the following pay day at a slightly higher value. If this resulted in soldiers occasionally being without their medals on parade, then a local restriction on the "pawning of medals" in Regimental Orders might have been deemed appropriate.