TOPIC:

I would never have thought of the first reason you give nor the second. This is turning into quite the history lesson for me.

Thank you David.

Good Morning David.....

I have a medal that was awarded to a soldier who after surviving the war turned to religion, he had his military information removed from his medal and added his ecclesiastical information, i.e. Reverend......

Mike

Hello Mike

That's an intersting one. I've never come across that kind of partial erasure before.

There are occasional examples of medals with the rank erased, particularly the on the earliest medal(s) in a group which show a lower rank than the man ended up with. Medals to senior NCOs with Private (or equivalent) erased or to senior officers with an early medal named to them as a subaltern can be found defaced in this way.

David

Gordon
Sometimes, recipients of medals were a little incensed about the rank shown in the naming - or the unit title or something else. Some attempted corrections themselves - or, in the case of a certain Stoker T.G.Lloyd who served on HMS Philomel and was awarded the East and West Africa medal (Clasp Benin 1897) and a no clasp QSA - he can be seen as being rather upset that he was shown as "Stoker cl.2" rather than Cl.1. Presumably in a certain frame of mind, he used a file to remove the offending rank!








Now some might do a tch tch tch at the above. However, Il has always been quite fond of the group as a whole and was happy to obtain it, imperfections and all.
Regards
IL.

Another interesting reason for erasing. The key phrase of your answer being "in a certain frame of mind". We'll probably never know what that was for sure.

Thank you Linneyl.

And never forget the prime motive: money. Many collectors want blanks as gap fillers in groups with missing medals. Now they may not want medals to be erased but they will buy one if one turns up. So there are dealers who erase medals as an erased one will actually fetch a higher price than a named one.

If you don't believe me look on eBay at the number of blanks from the same sellers.

Sad but true.

Ryan