TOPIC:

To be continued ....

Hi Rob

I think I have a couple of examples to Colonial troops with the ghost dates, will check tonight.

However, I am trying to make sense of the fact that the die was modified to remove the "raised dates", surely in order to appear on the medal as raised, the dies should be the reverse, and thus date cavity on the dies should have been filled in?, thus creating the shadow effect of the dates on the medal.

Jon

It always gets me shaking my head when I see dealers making a big deal about ghost dates (type 2) even to the extent of trumpeting 'clear ghost dates' The fact is that these are very common. One stat I read years ago estimated that fully a third of all QSAs issued have ghost dates. They're nothing more than a mild curiosity but I've still seen QSAs with a price premium on them because they have ghost dates. I've got dozens in my collection but I don't even bother noting the fact because ghost dates are of no particular interest to me.

David

RobCT wrote:
I note that Mike has suggested that this tooling was done by the recipients themselves. I suspect that this was not, or at least was not always the case, as at least two former members of Lord Strathcona’s Horse who received their medals from King Edward VII himself were unaware that the reverse dates on their medals had been removed.

Mike, I am somewhat surprised that you have recorded so few of these “Dates removed” medals awarded to Lord Strathconas’s Horse. What is the total roll number of QSA medals awarded to he Unit?

Good Morning......

Just a little picky but the actual regiment was call Strathcona's Horse and did not officially change their name to "Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians)" until 1911......

I have seen both types of date removal, very fine work and you can tell that it had been done by a jeweler, all the way to very crude where large chunks of the medal have been gouged out......

I also should have stated that there are 48 Type 2 (Ghost Date), 3 Type 3 and 1 Unknown..... This is from a list of known surviving medals that are in Museums, Private Collections and have shown up on Sales Lists.....

Wish I could take close up photos but have hit and miss with my camera.....

Mike

Interested members
Colonial troops certainly did get medals with Type II reverse. Just now, I had a quick look and found examples to CinCBG, Ceylon M.I., NSWIB and South Australian Bushmen. In a couple of cases, there is no evidence at all of dates being removed; in the others there certainly is. However, the erasure mark is present and that is all. No evidence of the dates being crudely erased. I attach pics of the Father and Son pair to the South Australian Bushmen to illustrate the point -





Regards to all
IL.