Even under the best of circumstances being a prisoner of war or “POW” is an unpleasant situation. Since it is easier to accept a surrender than to have to fight the enemy to the last man it would be logical to treat POWs well and publicize that fact to encourage more surrenders. War however breeds hate and prisoners are often badly treated. Having been a POW rarely results in any honors or recognition other than sympathy and that is why POW medals are very uncommon. Only a few countries officially award medals to honor their POWs, The United States and France come to mind and there may be a few more. As a result most POW medals are privately made, often by the POWs themselves. For example during WWI a German POWs were interned on the Isle of Man and were treated well enough that they were able to make a very interesting series of medals commemorating their time behind the barbed wire. The medals are made of some kind of white metal and can some times be found in neat little wooden boxes. Illustrated below are a few on the Isle of Man medals. Next week some American POW medals from WWII.

The first Federal war service medal was for service in the Civil War and was finally issued forty-two years after the fact in 1907. The obverse has a great portrait of President Abraham Lincoln who ran as an abolitionist (anti-slavery) Republican. His election as far as the pro-slavery south was concerned, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Southern States then promptly seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Lincoln was also a lawyer and his first concern was the protection and preservation of Federal property in those Confederate States. The legal question of whether or not states that had voluntarily joined the Union had the right to leave the Union, first raised in 1832, was not yet resolved at that time. As a lawyer Lincoln hoped that reasonable minds would prevail in time and that the question would be settled in the courts. He did not feel that he had the legal right to commence military action against the Confederates. Then Confederate forces fired on and captured Fort Sumter thereby forcing Lincoln’s hand. I have often wondered what would have happened if the Confederates had not fired the first shot. Would there have been a bloody civil war or would the lawyers have fought it out in the courts?

Throughout history especially in European history rulers tend only to use their first names and titles like King James, Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Juliana etc. First name choices are limited so many are followed by Roman Numerals like King Henry VIII. Monikers or nicknames are also commonly used to describe and distinguish the many rulers. Some are official while others are unofficial, disrespectful and no one would have dared use them within earshot of the ruler. Some examples of acceptable names were William the Conqueror, Frederick the Wise and Suleiman the Magnificent. There were lots of the Greats like Alexander, Catherine, Frederic, Peter and Charlemagne (Charles the Great). Guys to avoid would have been Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler. There was also Louis the Pious and all those with names they would like not to hear like Charles’ the Bald, the Fat, and the Foolish. Others were simply the Bold, the Tall and the Fair. My favorite has to be the Hessian Philipp The Magnanimous. He must have been a good guy to earn a name like that and to have an order established in his name. Long after most rulers have given up their claims to Devine Right and their thrones are empty; Philipp’s name and portrait continues to live on in many medal collections.

While going through a small collection of WWII Victory Medals I found a nice medal with a Navy AISNE bar. Navy bars are the ones with rope edges. My first question was why would the navy issue a bar for a land campaign? With a little research I found that the navy never issued such a bar! There are a lot of fake navy bars out there and this one is a classic with a pebbled field background. As many cops will tell you criminals are not usually the brightest of people. If some one goes to the trouble and expense to produce this bar wouldn’t you think they would do a bit of checking to make sure an original actually exists? Maybe they did or maybe like the counterfeiters of old who faced the death penalty if caught they were sly like a fox. Some old English coin counterfeiters altered the design of their product so that it was not an exact copy and therefore could claim that it was only a fantasy and not an actual fake. I am sure that whoever made these was not worried about a death penalty but maybe they had a mean streak which enjoyed the thought of some impulsive collector buying one of these “unknown” fantasy bars and then being too embarrassed to blow the whistle.

Northern Wisconsin has been a vacation destination for a long time. Many of the rich and famous found it a good place to beat the heat. Some of the most famous names were Al Capone and John Dillinger. Another lesser known visitor was Calvin Coolidge one of my favorite presidents who is best remembered for his statement that “The business of America is business.” He also liked to take long vacations and stayed at an estate on the Brule River known as Cedar Island from June to September 1928. Besides doing a lot of fishing, the Coolidges took part in a varied array of local activities like picnics, rodeos, mine tours and attended church services regularly. When a President travels it is always major event. Coolidge’s entourage reportedly included 10 Secret Service agents, 14 servants, 75 press reporters plus 90 soldiers of the 3rd infantry regiment from Fort Snelling, Minn. Local sources state that medals where given to the soldiers of the Presidential Guard by the city. Local history records the guard as 60 men but regimental records list 90 men and break that number down to which companies the men were drawn from so I will stick with the regimental records on this one and say that 90 of these medals were made. The medal illustrated below has an antiqued finish with a bright silver edge. The medal looks like it is silver plated base metal. The obverse has the 3rd Inf. Insignia and the reverse has a name space in the center with legends and inscriptions above and below explaining what the medal is for. This is the only one of these that I have ever seen which makes me wonder how many have survived.

Every collector hopes to find something that is not listed in the main reference of their collecting specialty. I had no such pipe dream when I bought this medal in a German antique shop years ago. I was just thrilled to find an impressive early Nazi era medal from Berchtesgaden. It looked like silver and had a good ring to it which was a test the antique dealer had not seen before. This medal does not have a silver fineness mark on the rim like most silver German medals do but I bought it any way since metal content was not an important factor. After I got it home I did a specific gravity test and found that this medal was only silver clad or plated and not silver which explained the lack of a fineness mark. The issuers of this medal may have been cheap but at least they were honest. How did I know it was from Berchtesgaden? The reverse inscription is “Watzmann - Abf. SA u. SS - Kl I Pr.”. Watzmann is a mountain synonymous with the village of Berchtesgaden. Abf. Stands for abfahrt which is a German word meaning to drive off from or leave which is often applied to down hill skiing events. I Pr means first prize and the SA u. SS - Kl is the class of competition in this event restricted to members of the SA (The Nazi Brown Shirts ) and the infamous SS. The fact that the SA was listed first and equally with the SS indicates that this event occurred and the medal was issued early in 1934 before the purge of the SA leadership and the relegation of the SA to second place in the party structure behind the SS. This was the Roehm Putsch of June 1934, often referred to “The Night of Long Knives.” All my assumptions were later confirmed when I ran across a badge depicting a faceless skier inscribed “Deutsche und Heeres Skimeisterschaften Berchtesgaden 7-12 Feb 1934 SA und SS Ski-Meisterschaften. If you collect long enough all your questions will eventually be answered.

Once in a while a military medal will show up with a ribbon in the shape of a bow. This almost always indicates that the medal was awarded to a woman. Illustrated below is the German Sudetenland Occupation Medal with the Prague Bar. The bow shaped ribbon means that this medal was awarded to a woman. My guess would be that she was a nurse or member of some sort of support unit. What really makes this medal interesting is that it commemorates one of the most important events in the history of the 20th century. The Sudetenland was the German speaking part of western Czechoslovakia, a country with unnatural borders cobbled together after the First World War. The province had rugged terrain and was well fortified. It would have been a tough nut to crack for the German military had Hitler ordered an invasion. Unfortunately for Czechoslovakia, there was a conference in Munich from which the Czechs were excluded. At this conference England, France and Italy agreed to give the Sudetenland to Germany! Most of Europe breathed a sigh of relief thinking that war had been averted. Hitler was seen by the Germans and many others as an invincible genius. Privately however Hitler was resentful and felt that he had been deprived of a glorious military victory! From this point on nothing could stop Hitler from becoming the Pied Piper of Death.

I may have been collecting too long. Medals that I have always considered common and under priced now frequently send me into sticker shock when I see them offered on the various internet sites. To make matters worse many of the medals offered are only copies, not even originals! Case in point is the German Franco Prussian War service medal. If you have to pay 40.00 or more dollars for one you should at least get an original! As with all the Prussian medals and crosses from 1864-1870, the thick loop on top should have two grooves, one on each side. Even the later official issues of the 1870 medal without the edge inscription still have a grooved loop. The only exception to this rule that I have ever seen is an original medal with a replacement wire loop. How do I know it is an original medal? It has the edge inscription and it is well struck. All the original medals and crosses are very well struck since they are mint products. Most of the copies are weaker strikes, some so weak that there even missing lines in the designs and the lettering looks shallow or faint. With the crosses the edges must be clean cut and straight. The edges on most copies look to be sloped or cut on a slant. The rims often range from high to subsurface on the same cross. The above mentioned copies are contemporary replacement pieces or wearing copies and as such are still collectible and often found in genuine groups but since they are only copies a collector should not pay full price for them. The scan below includes an 1866 cross, an early issue 1870 medal with edge inscription and the later version without the edge inscription. All are genuine.

The blinding hatred of politics never ceases to amaze me. I generally avoid talking about politics because I usually get both sides mad at me and nothing constructive comes of it. This time I will make an exception. Since Pres. Obama’s election I have seen an endless torrent of forwarded emails blaming the new president for everything; from his inherited economic problems to global warming itself. The latest one states that he has ordered the post office to issue an offensive Arabic language postage stamp and includes such a stamp design taken from the zazzle.com site. This is a site as I understand it, where a private person can have personalized postage stamps printed up with their own pictures or designs for an additional fee. The US Post Office has also issued an Arabic language holiday stamp in several different denominations for many years now. As a matter of fact the first such designs on stamps were issued as far back as 2001 which was many years before Pres. Obama took up residence in the White House. Don't believe me? Check this out: ( http://www.snopes.com/politics/stamps/eidstamp.asp ) Not being a stamp collector I may have just had an old new idea but I think now would be a good time for a series of postage stamps honoring the innocent victims of 911. Let us make the stamps bi-lingual and use both English and Arabic on every stamp. If you like this idea please pass it on, you need not even give me credit for it. My main reason for airing this is to call attention to all the BS being passed around the internet. The anti Target Stores is another example of the lies that never die on the net. I also included the snopes.com link in the hope that readers would go there to check things out before forwarding them. If as a country we let ourselves become so gullible that we believe these lies and attack innocent people and corporations we will have lost our ability to recognize our true enemies and defend ourselves properly. At that point we are doomed.