Introduction When I started this blog one of my hopes was that from time to time a fellow collector would ask me to provide a detailed description of an Austrian or Austro-Hungarian award in which they had an interest but one that they had found difficult to
Read more →As a collector of American medals to foreigners and foreign medals to Americans, I often see unusual combinations of awards. However, in some cases, the medals are not extraordinary, but the back-story is. The US Army Distinguished Service Medal to Major General Sir
Read more →The Battle of Tofrek was one of many actions undertaken by the British forces against the Mahdist forces in the Sudan. Originally the objective had been to relieve General Gordon in Khartoum but by January 1885 that city had fallen to the Mahdi’s army and Gordon had
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New Zealand medals were awarded for two distinctly separate groups of conflicts: The First War 1845-1847 and The Second War 1860-1866 I intend to write about each in a separate blog and although this first blog will focus on the medals for the first war, an overview
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Introduction to the “war ribbon” In this blog I am going to discuss the history of one of the two most common ribbons used to suspend Austro-Hungarian orders and decorations. Early in my collecting experience I realized that two ribbons were used for multiple awards. One is
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The Imperial Military Order of St. George was instituted on the 26th of November, 1769 by the Empress Catherine the Great to reward both military and naval officers for exceptional bravery. Nicholas Carlisle, in his book The Several Foreign Orders of Knighthood states some of the exemplary
Read more →When thinking of British campaign medals, especially Victorian campaign medals, the medal was typically issued in silver to the officers and other ranks. From 1885 until the First World War medals were issued in both silver and bronze. While the silver medals were issued to the combatants
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The depicted star is a very special example of the Red Eagle Order. Besides its unusual marksmanship and beauty one will see on its revers in the center of the star body a double maker mark from B.Wolfers as well as an unidentified mark on the needle
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This is the third of what will be a multiple part series of blogs on the Military Maria Theresia Order. Before reading this blog you may find it worthwhile to review the first two blogs in this series on the Military Maria Theresia Order. Also this blog
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It isn’t often in one’s collecting career that something of almost unique significance is found. Most awards, although scarce, could conceivably be encountered again later at some point in the collector’s life. This pair of awards was recently sold by a coin dealer. One of the pieces
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