| Original Message |
Kevin Green
Posted Mar 19, 2010 10:22 PM
Fear not Craig. I knew a fellow who worked for a summer at the place they make the medals. I posed to him the rumour that they have barrels and barrels of Great War medals that had not been claimed and he told me it wasn't true. They make medals as required. He said every once in a while he would hear the bang bang of the hammer mill and would go in to see what they were striking and it could be DSM's, DFC's or WW1 medals for people like me who got replacment ones. He said they had a few small drawers and made up something like a dozen extra medals whenever they were striking them, but that was all.
So, when you order replacement medals, or do as my Uncle did and apply for medals very very late, they are more or less freshly struck and they are every bit as authentic as the originals.
Now for some medals like CVSM, the common stars and 39-45 medal, etc, they have gone through several sets of dies over the years so you will see differences, minute though they are from the earlier issues, but the differences are slight. The Uncle I mentioned recieved among his other medals, an Aircrew Europe Star that is more or less new, but is indistinguishable from the early issues. Yes, the rings might be bigger but that means nothing.
No, what you have is a perfectly acceptable, valid and worthwhile set of medals. They do issue them with newer, shinier ribbons now days, but the medals you have can be displayed with pride.
Incidentally, my Grandads first war pair replacements cost me something like $7.49 about 20 years ago and they were not engraved. I don't know if that was an oversight or if nobody gets replacements engraved. About 15 years ago, I had another uncle order a replacement set for me, CVSM bar, 39-45 medal, 39-45 star, Atlantic Star (France & Germany bar) and those cost me $106.00. |
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