MEDALS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5558, 8 April 1905, Page 16

MEDALS.

Among the hundred and one articles which tempt these industrious workers who make if the business of their lives to collect things medals have long boon numbered; and after every,war a number of these decorations are thrown upon the market. Just now medals aro unusually cheap, owing to the death of a great collector, and it may be of interest to note the prices which some of them have reached. A South African medal with six bars can now be bought for ten shillings, as against the Jive pounds which it fetched, when first issued. The highest price ever recorded for a private soldier’s Peninsular medal, ono with thirteen bars, was fifty guineas. An old Indian war medal awarded to an officer, with about balf-a-crown’s worth of silver in it, lias fetched as much as sixty guineas. Then there aro unique medals which naturally command fancy prices. For example, the bugle and four medals of Jay, who sounded the famous charge at Balaklava, were sold for nearly eight hundred pounds. Again, there is a medal once owned by Nelson, which, was presented to him by a Mr Davidson, who was so disgusted that no national medal was struck to commemorate the battle of the Nile that he had one made at his own expense, and presented it to the famous sailor. This brought ono hundred and eighty pounds at a.London,sale room a fow years ago. The present value in the modal market of a Victoria Cross is between forty and fifty pound/-. ‘