August purchases!

Hey everyone, I've managed to collate all my purchases from last month and have pictured them here. They are from left to right, starting on the top row:

Nigeria - Recognised Service Medal
Malaysia - Kedah - Distinguished Service Star
Hong Kong - Coronation Medal 1902
QSA and KSA pair to Private G. Greenwood, Scottish Rifles
WW1 British War Medal and Memorial Plaque to Private James Greenwood, Coldstream Guards

Both the Nigerian and Malaysian medals were quite well priced so was happy to add them to my collection. The Hong Kong medal was also a very good buy at a substantially lower price than most dealers are selling for. I was born and raised in Hong Kong so am always eager to add more Hong Kong medals to the collection.

The two Greenwood groups are great additions to my 'Surname' collection. Pte. G. Greenwood is a bit of a mystery and I'll need to do some research on him. The clasps on his QSA are Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal, and the naming is correctly impressed. The WW1 group is my favourite for the month. This is the first Memorial Plaque I've bought and the plaque is an extremely attractive example of numismatic art. Presented to the next of kin of some 1.3 million casualties of the war, it was a fitting memorial to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, including 600 women. There was no such memorial to those who died in later conflicts, save for a brief facsimilied condolence note. I will be sure to give Private James Greenwood's medals a fitting display in my collection.

James Greenwood was born in Baxenden in Lancashire, England, enlisting at Accrington.

He was killed in action in France and Flanders during the Battle of Poelcapelle on 09 October 1917 whilst serving in the 1^st Battalion, Coldstream Guards. He is commemorated in the Tyne Cot Memorial on panels 9/10. Other than that details of him are also rather sketchy and require more research.

 

Another WW1 pair of medals to a Greenwood recently appeared on eBay. He was a member of the Australian Imperial Force and was killed at Fromelles, where they recently found and reinterred several unknown Australians found in a mass grave. Unfortunately the group was way beyond my budget (over AUD$900!). Hopefully the group has found a good home.

 

Got my eye on a few other items...hope to be posting something on these soon!

A fresh start! 742 medals and counting.....

So I've decided to get back into blogging, and this time instead of random ramblings I will actually have a focus - my medal collecting. At last count my collection had 742 medals from 90 countries, so there should be enough material to keep me going for a while! So where do we start...I know, lets start at the END...the END being my latest purchases. I'll try to attach a pic. If it doesn't work then hey I tried.

Sweet, it worked! As you can see, it's a bit of a hodge-podge. My collection is struggling to find a focus and I tend to buy whatever interests me at the time, or at least what's going cheap.

So what are they? Well, from left to right starting from the top row:

Burundi Medal of the Order of Patriotic Merit
Cuba Manuel Fajardo Medal
N.Korea Agricultural Merit Medal
N.Korea Commemorative Medal for the Fatherland War
Malaysia Kelantan Silver Jubilee Medal 2004
Malaysia Perak Long Service Medal
Nigeria Distinguished Service Medal

With the exceptions of the two Malaysian medals, they were all relatively cheap and purchased because I had nothing like them in my collection. The medal from Burundi is the first in my collection from that country, and the Cuban the first from the Castro era (I have a group from the pre-Castro days). The DPRK medals are the first non-breast stars from that country I've bought and the Nigeria medal is an addition to the Nigerian group of three that I bought years ago. The two Malaysian medals are additions to a collection started since an amazing visit to that country back in 2008, where I spent the best part of 2 weeks hunting for medals, despite the fact I was supposed to be there on a romantic getaway with my partner and to attend a friend's wedding.

Well that's a start and I'll post more when I get time, which hopefully will be soon.