Description

Token Publishing Ltd [Published Date: 2004] Softcover, 520 pp. In very good condition. Glossy pictorial paper covers have light bumping to edges and light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Color and black and white illustrations. Comprehensive catalog detailing British and Commonwealth military and civil medals, including new sections on the General Service Medal with "Canal Zone" clasp and awards related to Operation Telic. Offers insights into medal market trends and the significance of provenance. [From Preface] This is the eleventh annual edition of the MEDAL YEARBOOK and once again there have been a number of major changes, although essentially the book remains in the same format as the tenth edition. There are new useful sections added as well as a number of new medals, although after the deluge of new medals and decorations recorded last year the number chronicled for the first time in this edition is reduced. We are very pleased to record that the long-running campaign to secure an award that recognised the service of thousands of regulars and National Servicemen in the Canal Zone in the crucial years of 1951-54 has at long last been recognised by the issue of the General Service Medal with the clasp Canal Zone. Inevitably the main news this year concerns the campaign medals and gallantry awards in respect of Operation Telic, more commonly known as the Second Gulf War. The proliferation of "international" awards for which British personnel are eligible in certain circumstances continues apace and these are duly itemised in the appropriate sections of this edition. This is something of a grey area, with British personnel entitled to wear the ribbon and medal in some cases but not in others. As in previous editions we list those medals in which British or Commonwealth personnel were involved, but omit others in which there was no British participation. Several medals "on the fringe" have been added to this edition, both hitherto unrecorded unofficial medals and new issues which cater to ex-service personnel whose service was not recognised by an official award. Now that the epic battle for the Canal Zone medal has been won the latest campaign for such recognition comes from veterans of the Arctic convoys who point out that their service in the Atlantic prior to engaging in this most hazardous operation was recognised by the Atlantic Star, and that naval personnel who subsequently spent a single day in the Mediterranean qualified for the Italy Star. If campaign stars should have been instituted for North Africa, Burma and the Pacific, the argument runs that the service in the Arctic certainly merited a comparable award. Ironically British veterans were subsequently awarded in 1985 a medal by the Soviet Union marking the 40th anniversary of the war. Apart from that, they have so far had to content themselves with the Arctic Campaign Medal instituted by Award Productions. The review of the auction scene over the past year reveals that the market continues to surge ahead. If there have been far fewer Victoria Crosses under the hammer than in previous years this is an inevitable result of diminishing supplies of the coveted award in private hands. Incidentally it is interesting to note that several VCs have been donated to the appropriate museums by descendants and relatives who resisted the temptation to offer them for sale and let the museums raise the money to buy them. What is probably more significant is the astonishing prices paid for medals which, not so long ago, would have been regarded as of little or no account. . .