A Fake Distinguished
Service Medal
Ian R. Hartley
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As
the market for medals continues to grow, so too will the opportunities for
the unscrupulous to make financial gains from the unwary, especially as the
increasing interest in medals generates many newcomers to the hobby of medal
collecting. Medals for gallantry are
particularly sought after, so it is important to be aware of any fakes or
copies in circulation. Although some
WW1 and WW2 British gallantry medals were issued un-named to foreign
servicemen, there seems to be a rather large number of these un-named
examples on the market. Clearly, many
are high quality copies and it is only a small step from obtaining good
copies to adding a name on the edge. I
recently came across a George VI Distinguished Service Medal with engraved
naming to 'A.B. T.M. Evans D/JX.394305', which was apparently awarded for the
The medal disc is a good cast copy in silver. It has not been die-struck as the originals were, so it has several tell-tale signs which can be seen under a hand lens. Because it has been cast, the flat fields on both sides of the medal are not perfectly smooth, but pitted with the sort of texture that a crumbly cheese might have if it were compressed (Fig 1). There are occasional small holes, especially near lettering or detail and, on close inspection, some of the lettering is not as well defined as it would be on an original medal (Fig 2). |
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On the obverse, there are a few small silver
spheres attached to the crown in the wrong places (arrowed in Fig 3). These are a by-product of the casting process
but can clearly be seen when compared with a similar King's head from a WW2 War
Medal for example. The mould for the cast would be full size, as it was made
from an original medal, but hot metal shrinks on cooling, so this copy is slightly
under-sized. It has a diameter of 35.5
mm rather than 36.5 mm. On the obverse,
the rim is rather unevenly cast around them medal, so that field rises up to
the rim on the left side. On the
reverse, the rim on the immediate right of the clasp is thinner (Fig 4),
presumably where the word 'copy' has been polished off.
The clasp looks original and may have been
taken from another medal which carries this type of clasp, such as the British
War Medal 1914-20. Under a hand lens,
there are visible signs on the obverse where a drill has slipped when fixing the clasp; it leaves a characteristic swirling
scratch (Figs 5 and 6). Naming is in
engraved capitals, as is correct for the later part of WW2, although perhaps
not quite as neat as one would expect on an original (Fig 7).
Many
of the features described here are only visible after close inspection under a
hand lens, or even under a low powered microscope. As ever, the message is caveat emptor,
let the buyer beware, but a knowledge of the basic
types of fakes and copies, like this one, will help to prevent expensive
mistakes on other areas as well.
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Figure 1. Close-up of field on obverse, showing texture of cast surface. |
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Figure 2. Close-up of reverse, showing poor definition of lettering and holes in the surface characteristic of the casting process. |
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Figure
3. Close up of the King's crown
showing the silver spheres (arrowed) produced by the casting process. |
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Figure
4. Close-up of the obverse rim by the
clasp, which shows signs of thinning, probably due to removal of the
impressed word 'copy'. |
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Figure
5. Close-up of obverse showing
characteristic swirling scratch from drill slippage during clasp fitting. |
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Figure
6. Detail of obverse showing
characteristic swirling scratch from drill slippage during clasp fitting (A),
silver spheres from the casting process (B) and characteristic pitting in the
field (C). |
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Figure
7. Example of engraved lettering on
the fake medal. |
Links
Air Crew Europe
Stars - identifying copies and originals
Battle of Britain
clasps - identifying copies and originals
If you want
to comment or add to this, you can e-mail me via i.hartley
‘at’ Lancaster.ac.uk.
Ian
31st
March 2008
Copyright to Ian