Military Medal

Marcus Budgen is to head the Spink medals department after the departure of David Erskine-Hill.

One of the finest Victoria Cross medals awarded to a Canadian recipient will be staying in Canada thanks to a successf ul fundraising campaign.

The Zulu War medal awarded to Driver Charles Robson, batman to commanding officer Lieutenant John Chard during the epic defence of Rorke’s Drift, sold for £110,000 at Dix Noonan Webb on March 2.

London coins and medals specialist Dix Noonan Webb is changing its management structure.

An Arctic Medal with a provenance indicating it was awarded to a member of the doomed Franklin Expedition which vanished searching for the elusive Northwest Passage has surfaced at a Surrey auction house.

Tis the season to sell Victoria Crosses… three have come up at auction recently and posted strong results, including a world record.

We know how it usually goes with most stand-out Victoria Crosses offered at auction: Lord Ashcroft buys them and they go on display at his gallery in the Imperial War Museum in London. But the record for a VC sold at auction, which has recently been set at London saleroom Morton & Eden, actually went to another bidder with very deep pockets – but thankfully for medals enthusiasts, someone else who is looking to put it on public view.

“I died in hell – they called it Passchendaele,” Siegfried Sassoon famously wrote of the First World War carnage which ended in November 1917.

Originally due to be hosted by Rome, the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius meant that London was a late replacement to hold the fourth modern Olympiad in 1908.

An unusual medals sale has led to an unusual outcome. An application is to be made to export from Canada the Victoria Cross group won by heroic Lieutenant Colonel David Currie after it was bought by a British private collector.

Medal groups awarded to two members of the same family on offer at auction are not unknown but three together is definitely unusual.

Operations behind enemy lines was the theme linking two special forces medals groups sold by London auction house Spink (20% buyer’s premium) on July 26.

Medals for service in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and long service/good conduct denote a busy 1980s career. In value terms, for a non-special forces unit, it means a price probably within £1000 at auction. But it is a single action lasting about 17 minutes from start to finish which explains why such a group on offer at Woolley & Wallis on November 22 is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

A unique Victoria Cross and other awards won by one of the greatest heroes in Canadian history is to be auctioned by Dix Noonan Webb on September 27.

Considering there were only 150 men defending Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus, an impressive number of medals awarded after that epic 1879 encounter have come to auction recently.