He is now the event’s manager as well as organising his own medal fairs in Aldershot, Stratford-on-Avon and Yate. The 30-year-old fair is held biannually in March and November at the Victory Services Club in London. The next is on Sunday, March 17.
This is fully booked at 50 tables, which include specialist auction houses Spink & Son, Baldwin’s, Morton & Eden as well as DNW. Medal dealers standing here include The London Medal Company, Dixons, Great War Medals and Stephen Wheeler.
Unusual medal group
Picture above is a rare 1920 ‘Iraq Insurgency’ Military Cross group of six awarded to Captain James Michael Roche of the Royal Field Artillery. The MC was given for his gallantry in maintaining the defence of the gunboat HMS Greenfly after she had run aground in the Euphrates in Mesopotamia during the Iraqi revolt against the British occupation of Iraq.
It is believed that Roche was the sole survivor of the Greenfly after the gunboat’s Indian troops may have mutinied in October 1920, killed Roche’s second-in-command Lt Alfred Hedger and handed her over to Arab insurgents who boarded the ship, stripped it of its 12-pounder gun and set it alight.
However, a subsequent board of enquiry found “no absolute proof of this had been obtained”. Roche had left the gunboat under the command of Lt Hedger awaiting a second rescue attempt.
This medal group is priced at £2950 with DCM Medals at the Britannia Medal Fair.
