The Importance of a Medal's Provenance with Mark Smith | Baldwins Medals

Every medal has a story, and the story can determine its value. WWII medals were unfortunately left nameless, Mark explains what to look out for when searching for the history of a medal and its owner. Watch as Mark traces the story of Sargeant Basil F. Franks, including photographs, hand-written letters and newspaper clippings.
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[@BB-ltfc]

Bravo Mark. It’s through things like this that their name liveth for evermore.

[@l1a146]

I have been involved in the acquisition of various Medals from Ebay and the like. Australian Medals are always named luckily and in most cases we have been able to place them back with families at no cost to them. Quite often what starts as a single medal, unfolds into an intricate story that quite honestly would amaze most people. And you are right, they kind of come back to life.

[@stormofsteel25112007]

An amazing story, thank you for sharing.

[@tommypocket6182]

What a Fantastic man has the same ideology as me, sadly I’ve seen a medal dealer on eBay buy a set of www medals for a service man killed in North Africa, and with it was his art sketches and drawings of life in North Africa, 2 months later the buyer puts the medals on eBay to sell, and sadly he has thrown away all his art work because he thought it was irrelevant and medal collectors won’t be interested in them and it’s just the medals they are after. so I emailed him back and called him a complete stupid idiot

[@t.wcharles2171]

I have some Crimean War medals from my three times great uncle who we don't have a photograph of what we do have however is his obituary in the local paper and through this we know enough about him to start piecing his life together that he served in the Coldstream Guards for more than twenty years ending up as a Colour Sergeant afterwards he was the caretaker of the national gallery and later of the Coldstream Guards' hospital before retiring with a pension from his MSM and dying of an 'illness of the throat.'

[@anthonyeaton5153]

In your artice about UK WW1 medals you failed to mention how the Mons Star got its name via The Old Contemptibles.

[@TheCardiganR]

I had a WW1 war and victory medal named to the same person from the RASC. They came in a cigarette tin with an empty packet of the same brand and his cap badge. I tried selling them on and no one was interested in the whole package, just the Medals. Big shame.

[@alfiedog2942]

Absolutely fascinating many thanks 🙏

[@dutley1848]

The amount of ephemera with this group is amazing it just adds so much to the poignant story. Great video

[@steverenney]

So sad