Stolen Medal Group Appearing for Sale - King's Liverpool

[Interested]

Well done, your hard work paid off.

However, IMO it would have been a Wolseley 6/90, I can almost hear the bell from here.

Philip

[Ian Riley]

3 hours ago, Interested said:

Well done, your hard work paid off.

However, IMO it would have been a Wolseley 6/90, I can almost hear the bell from here.

Philip

 I did do a quick check on Fabian , finding a page that described him as being in a Humber (and there are photos of such a car, but not with Fabian) but I have to say the Wolseley certainly looks the part. Maybe there is confusion with :Lockhart here. I pretty sure Dixon did not have a flashy motor. Evenin' All

 

Edited 6 February , 2018 by Ian Riley

[Interested]

Well, not to intend any offence, but I'm happier discussing police cars; football teams leave me cold!!

Meanwhile, back to the topic; my father passed on to me the family medal collection, but how do I prove title in these?  Not that I intend to sell them, but one day I expect I'll want to pass them on to the next generation.  Does anyone have an idea for a letter to accompany them that would establish ownership?  Is this necessary?

A recent thread discussed the issue of loaning/donating them to an Army Museum, and this also seems fraught with unintended consequences.

Philip

[depaor01]

1 hour ago, Interested said:

 how do I prove title in these? 

If the bequest was mentioned in his will and probate was granted then that should be enough to prove title.

Dave

[Ian Riley]

It is my understanding that it not generally modern museum practice to accept 'permanent loan'. 

 

I would think that your title is pretty good given that there is no reported theft and, hopefully, no contesting siblings.  Putting a mention of your own collection in your will seems a pretty good move to me or a letter of gift to those of the next generation. I am just dealing with a suitable disposition of a medal group and plaque acquired by someone on the death of  a family friend (with no family of his own) and the question of how they pass them on (preferring a museum rather than a collector).  Problem is that museums do not necessarily wish to accession items that are already represented in the collection (and regimental museums have more groups than most can display)

 

Edited 7 February , 2018 by Ian Riley

[Ian Riley]

On 29/01/2018 at 18:07, Kath said:

Anything in the local papers?

Kath.

Kath, Belatedly, thanks for that suggestion. The family member no longer lives locally (about 200 miles form what would be 'local') and for me, life's too short !

[chaz]

has been covered elsewhere , here or on BMF, a museum sold off medals that were loaned to them. wasn't there an issue with a school selling off an ex pupils set?

[depaor01]

43 minutes ago, chaz said:

wasn't there an issue with a school selling off an ex pupils set?

Yep

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3459967/School-fire-plans-sell-VC-medal-heroic-former-pupil-led-brave-counter-attack-WW1-build-new-sports-hall.html

 

Dave 

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, chaz said:

has been covered elsewhere , here or on BMF, a museum sold off medals that were loaned to them. wasn't there an issue with a school selling off an ex pupils set?

 

   I can only speak  with knowledge of the world of books- but I believe the same has applied to militaria over the years. There was a cottage industry centered on Sothebys in the 1980s where they did a lot of work researching manuscripts in major Broitish institutions- many had been deposited on "permanent" loan and families had simply forgotten about them across the generations. Sothebys very helpfully got families to reclaim and then get the materials under the hammer in New Bond Street-the idea being to force the original institution to bid to get them back again. Worked for a while until with one bloc of manuscripts, the British Museum/British Library refused to be driven to market and rebelled.  Subsequently, institutions cooperated to defeat this practice against the hammer-in one bloc of materials "liberated" after being loaned to the Bodleian in the early Twentieth Century, a leading bookseller (who acts for the British Library) organised 19 other instittions into a "ring" to defeat the auctioneers- quite legally as the Auction Bidding Agreements Acts of 1927 and 1959 apply only to dealers- librarians and archivists are considered to be "gentlemen"(as if).

     The nub of the problem appears to be what is meant by "permanent loan".  I know that institutions get very twitchy nowadys about such things-and it keeps several of M'Learned Friends in the Inns of Court well remunerated year on year (mainly so they turn up p**ssed at Lords-why do I always end up sitting next to p*ssed barristers?).

 

     Perhaps the saddest example I have seen was a bookselling colleague who bought some books  being chucked out of an Oxford college. The best set was Ackermanns Oxford, with lovely watercolour (aquatint) plates (a few thousand quid to boot). It has been given to Trinity (I think) by the parents of a former student killed in the Second  World War- a chap called Henry Young.  Better known,perhaps, to many Forum members as "Dinghy" Young, one of the Dambusters. A rather squalid end to a generous remembrance by his parents.