George Rogers Clark Medal

Starting at the beginning George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) was born in Charlottesville, Virginia Nov. 19, 1752.He was the older brother of William Clark who was the Clark in the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. His military service began as a scout in Lord Dunmore’s war of 1774. Clark then settled in Kentucky and organized the militia defense against the hostile Indian allies of the British during the revolutionary war. About this time Clark was promoted to Lt.-Colonel and made Commander of the Kentucky frontier militia. In 1778 Clark led a 175 man expedition down the Ohio and into Illinois where on July 4 they captured Kaskaskia and then Cahokia and Vincennes in August of the same year. Vincennes had to be recaptured Feb. 25, 1779. Now as a Brigadier General Clark led a successful expedition against the Shawnee and repelled a British and Indian attack on the then Spanish settlement of St. Louis in 1780. In Jan. of 1781 he assisted in repelling attacks led by Benedict Arnold. From 1783-1786 Clark was the US Indian Commissioner and led an expedition against the Wabash tribes. During the 1790’s Clark was involved in several failed French and Spanish colonization schemes trying to better himself financially and then retired to Louisville, Kentucky until his death Feb. 13, 1818.

The medal, 20 x 34.4mm is bronze and in the shape of a stone arrow head with Clark's portrait on the obverse facing to the left. The inscription “KY GEORGE ROGERS CLARK TRACE” is above and below the portrait. (What is meant by the word “Trace” is unknown to me.) The reverse is blank except for the makers name “Medal Arts Co. Roch. N. Y. " The ribbon is faded and discolored but the original colors were probably blue and white. My guess is that this medal was made in the 1920's and is rarely seen on that large internet auction site.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does human nature. After the First World War a defeated Germany found itself in a vacuum. The imperial and royal governments had fallen. The weak Weimar Republican government had so completely disavowed war and the military that it refused to issue any medals for WWI service. Millions of veterans who served honorably and suffered so many hardships (as did the veterans on all sides) came home to a government that wanted to forget the last 4 ¼ years. To fill this medallic void numerous German veteran and patriotic groups issued a flood of WWI service awards. Even some former allied countries like Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary issued medals. The medals were sold to anyone who felt that they were entitled to wear a particular medal. As a result medal groups can be found with many interesting combinations of medals which often are totally unverifiable. The field is vast and not yet completely cataloged. One could spend a life time just collecting these unofficial awards. Illustrated below are just four of the better looking examples, one from each of the former kingdoms of the Germany Empire: Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony and Wuerttemberg. Take a close look and see if you can figure out which is which.

Couple of weeks ago we checked out the local Goodwill store on the way home. Over the years I have found some good books and music cd's there.  This being 2007 the memory of the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks  are starting to fade from the public mind and we now have kids in grade school that were born after that date of infamy. In the small book section laying on top of the shelved books was a large white book, 9x11 inches and 568 pages, titled "PORTRAIT 9/11/01 The Collected "Portraits of Grief" From The New York Times" published in 2002,  already in it's tenth printing and I had never heard of it! It is a very moving book featuring photos and short written descriptions of the lives of the nearly 3000 innocent  victims murdered that day. So if you ever find yourself wondering why the US military is stumbling around in Iraq and Afghanistan like a wounded elephant trampling the natives get a copy of this book.

We all know that the Silver Star is one of the United States’ highest awards for valor. Actually the third highest combat only award. To earn one of these a soldier in combat has to be very brave and very lucky. The brave part is understood but one must also be lucky enough to have a witness to the act of bravery who also survives the battle and is able to report the act of valor in such a way that the act is recognized and rewarded with the Silver Star. Silver Stars are very popular with collectors because all the awarded ones are named on the back and therefore researchable. Illustrated below is a very sad example of an early WWII issue Silver Star that has had the original owner’s name filed off! I have seen this sort of thing on British medals but rarely on American medals. Why was this done? I can only guess that the original owner fell on hard times after he left the service and had to sell his medals. He probably filed off his own name out of a sense of shame for having had to sell his precious medals or maybe he feared that some pretender could assume his identity. It is sad that one of our nations heroes had to sell his medals. It is tragic that he destroyed the only historical monument to his own heroism and that now we will never know who he was or what he did to earn this Silver Star.

With the high price of gas now I always plan several things to do when ever I have to make a trip. I had a medical appointment in Wausau a few days ago so I took the wife along and we went to the local art museum and had lunch which made her day. No trip to Wausau is complete for me without a visit to Ginny’s, my favorite downtown antique shop. I don’t often find anything there in my line  but once in a while I actually do spend some money in that little shop. This trip was one of those times. In one of her cases was this spectacular silver five arm cross. The cross is 86mm and weighs 50.37 grams. The ring is hallmarked “800” which is the fine silver content of the cross. On the obverse in the center is a medal with a standing woman leaning against a shield and holding a bird nest full of hatchlings. The background is a city view and there is a German legend “MENSCHEN NUTZEN VOGEL SCHUTZEN” which roughly translates, people benefit (when) birds are protected. On the reverse is the inscription “Dem Verdienste” which means that this is a medal of merit. Unfortunately there is no mention of the group that issued this cross or who the recipient was. The only clue would be the city view. If anyone recognizes it please let me know.

Early this year I lost one of the best collecting friends anyone could wish for. Leonard and I had been friends for over 30 years and both of us were serious collectors of Wisconsin state and local issue military medals.  Our collections about equal in size and were kind of like the jagged cut coin.  What I was missing he usually had and what he was missing I had.  With out his help and encouragement I might never have published my Wisconsin military medals book. He also collected the medals of other states like I do. Beyond that we went our seperate ways.  He didn't collect Imperial German like I do and I didn't collect US medals like he did. When it came to ebay we found that we wouldn't bid against each other so we both were in a race to find medals and be the  first to bid on them.  At the Iola Military Show Leonard would display his Wisconsin medals and stay at my house for the weekend.  My wife Cathy thought of him as the perfect house guest even though she found very little she could talk with him about.  No one in his family collected medals but they knew about me and eventually I recieved the call to come look at the collection. I was staggered by what I saw.  Leonard's Wisconsin collection was only the tip of the iceberg and what I though would be an afternoon's worth of work suddenly looked like several days worth. Then much to my relief I found the my friend had kept good records!  Note books listing the medals, what he paid for them, when he bought them and even some recent pages with current value estimates and therein lies an important message for us all; please keep good records of your collection. It will make a world of difference to your heirs and who ever will have to appraise and or buy the estate.  It will help insure that your heirs will get a fair price for your collection.  Do It Now!! Please.