When I was on the Great War battlefields recently......

[bigduke6]

For anyone who does display family medals as above, I would suggest keeping the originals out of sight and in a safe place unless there in a well secured room out of sight.

Anything in the eye of strangers I would Display copies of the medals and photos...... WW2 campaign medals were not named, so no need for copies you can buy the originals for the wall, the most expensive (when I was collecting many moons ago) was the Air Crew Europe Star ....... I would say its the Arctic Star now, this really was a disgrace by the government who only approved and issued it in 2012...........

WW1 Medals and previous, were named, good copies can be had, originals can be had and are cheap enough when they have been split from a group, many WW1 medals were pawned, one of my Grandad's pawned his in the twenties, (The British War Medal was solid Silver....) I think the QSA was also, its why many groups lack the silver.

I had an interesting group once, I had all the silver but was missing the mons star and victory medal, obviously been in a pawn shop but never made it to the smelters, Guy had been in South Africa and had joined up again at the start of WW1

The saddest one of all is seeing them on a car boot sale......... I've recovered a few off there, one pair which were not too old, a Long service good conduct medal and NI General Service medal...... the thing that caught my was the oak leaf, (mention in dispatches)

I tried to find the owner (I would guess it was his ex wife on the boot sale but didn't know at the time) didn't have much success, but did get a reply from a gent in the RM association, a guy in Australia had joined up with the owner...... on a bit of research I spoke to a Department of the RN, they confirmed everything they could but couldn't say about his MID, as it was awarded during the height of troubles in NI..........

Researching can draw you in at times, bit like reading a good book and your actually there...... makes the hairs on the neck stand up.....