When ever I travel I keep my eyes open for war memorials and monuments. Most of the ones I see here in the states are of Civil War and WWI soldiers in heroic or contemplative posses. Most small towns in Germany have memorials which are more somber and list the names of the local men who died in the various wars. The most interesting one is the memorial painted on a wall in Berchtesgaden which tells the sad story of all wars. These four paintings get repainted every so often and each time there are subtle changes, atleast in the three times that I have seen them. Illustrated below are the four panels in the order that I have placed them and not as found on the wall when I took the photos. I interpret the pictures as: Young recruit leaving his wife and child. Soldier leaving for the front bids his father farewell. Soldiers bravely fighting. Soldier’s body returned to grieving family. I guess we all know that collecting military medals is fun but earning them can be hell for both the soldiers and their families.

Snatch The Bacon was a fun game we played back when I was in Scouting. The object of the game was for one of two players, both with one hand behind their back, to snatch the hat on the ground and make it back to your home line without getting tagged by the other player or to fake out the other guy and get him to tag you when you were not holding the hat. For some reason the name of that game in my collecting mind has come to mean getting away with something while breaking some arbitrary or asinine rule forced upon me. For example several years ago I bought this badge on an internet auction site. The badge was for participants in a skiing competition held near Berchtesgaden in 1934. I really needed this badge as a companion piece for the event’s first place prize medal that resides in my collection. The badge depicts a ski jumper with three flags behind him; Nazi party flag with the forbidden swastika, the German National tri-color flag of that date and the sports association flag. My greatest fear was that some rat-fink would report the banned item to the auction site, so I asked the seller about the hallmark if any on back. That way I had his email if the badge got pulled off the site before the sale ended. I placed my bid and then sniped it in the final moments. Victory!!. I felt quite a rush just like in the old days when I Snatched The Bacon.

If one can believe the presidential election polls we are about to have our first black president which will be a milestone by any measurement. Interestingly enough Senator Obama can not trace his direct ancestry to any American slaves as most American blacks can or claim. None the less he is a political pioneer which reminds me of a 1937 dated National Guard Medical Department Lieutenant’s Commission named to Claudius Langdon Forney. I bought it from Haag’s Antiques in Columbus, Wisconsin about 4-5 years ago. I like medical stuff and the name sounded black so how could I resist? A quick name check on Google found the name listed in the 1940 edition of Who’s Who in Colored America as a Physician. The Social Security Death Index lists the doctor as an Illinois resident from the Chicago area with life dates of 1897-1969. Then I checked my 1940 Illinois National Guard book and there was his picture as a Captain in the Eighth Infantry Headquarters Company Medical Staff. To become a black doctor in the America of the 1920’s he must have been an exceptional man. At the time of his death America was being torn apart by race riots. I wonder what would he say if he could see the potential Obama presidency of today?

In 1965 the Dominican Republic was in turmoil. A leftist revolution broke out that would have succeeded had it not been for an American military intervention in cooperation with the Organization of American States or OAS. All successful military actions, as we all know, should be commemorated with a medal. To honor the participants of this campaign the Inter-American Peace Medal For Merit was designed with a Spanish legend and inscription and showing the western hemisphere. The design was rejected however by the Department of the Army (US) causing Evans Kerrigan in his American Medals And Decorations book, to label this as “the medal that never was” while conceding that copies of it do exist in some collections. Illustrated here is one of those medals that can be found existing in my collection.“

While on my way home from Illinois this weekend I was able to check out two Milwaukee antique malls where I found with this lucite encased marksmanship prize medal. This Blackinton made medal never had a pin so I am certain that it was issued in the lucite. The pin-less broach is inscribed “MILWAUKEE POST OFFICE // SPORTSMEN’S CLUB // RIFLE TEAM // 1961.” The two bars on the ribbon are inscribed “OFF HAND” and “FIRST PLACE”. The irregular shaped medal has a standing rifleman on a white enamel target.

“Going Postal” is an unfortunate slang expression that came into use back in the early 1990’s to describe someone who becomes angry and crazy enough to shoot fellow workers as happened in several post offices in the 1980’s

The medal described above and illustrated below takes the expression “Going Postal” to a  new level.

British War Medal 1939-45 or is it the Canadian version?

The British War Medal, made of copper-nickel is a common medal and nearly impossible to visually distinguish from the Canadian version struck in .800 fine silver. There is no weight difference so a simple scale won’t help. An acid test would do it if you don’t mind damaging your medal if it turns out to be the copper-nickel version. To make sure it is not plated you would also have to file into the rim to get below the level of any possible plating. If you are like me and don’t believe in mutilating medals then the only other option is a specific gravity test.

The medal pictured below is my medal and it tested out with a specific gravity of 9.81 which indicates that it is the .800 fine silver Canadian version. The copper-nickel version would have had a number of 8.94. The .800 fine silver should be about 10.14 so why is this medal only 9.81? Because the suspension bar mounted on top of the medal could not be removed and it is copper-nickel which screws up the results of the specific gravity test. Fortunately the resulting number of 9.81 is too high to be anything but the silver version.