Beyond firearms and swords the collector may find many treasures among such weapons as daggers, bayonets, lances, battle-axes, pikes, spears, boomerangs, assegais, and native clubs. It should always be remembered, however, that the weapons used by British forces, past and present, are of more interest and value than those coming from savage races.
CHAPTER VII
EARLY BRITISH WAR MEDALS
How to arrange a collection of medals—Factors which influence the value of a medal—The earliest medals—The first English medal—The first English military medal—The Forlorn Hope medal—The Dunbar medal—The Culloden medal—Medals granted by the Honourable East India Company—The Pope's medal, 1793—The Emperor Francis II of Germany's medal, 1794—The Seringapatam medal—The Egyptian medal, 1801—The Rodriguez medal—The Nepaul medal—The Maida medal—The Peninsular officers' medal
The dignity which enshrines a collection of war medals is something greater and fuller than that which can be ascribed to almost any other branch of curio collecting. Coins, china, furniture, and prints are all fascinating in their way, but none seem to have the same depth of interest as is possessed by the average collection of war medals. To handle one of these tokens of strife and bloodshed is to call up feelings of reverence and honour for the man who spent his energies so freely in earning it, and it is probably on account of this extrinsic quality that war medals are so highly prized among connoisseurs.
With many forms of collecting, the different specimens that are available are so numerous as to be overwhelming, but this drawback cannot act as a deterrent to the would-be medal collector. British medals have been fashioned with a sparing hand, and their number is more or less limited. Many of them, it is true, are extremely costly, whilst a select few are quite prohibitive in price—a matter which, perhaps, adds to the zest of collecting.
The best method of storing these treasures is to follow the plan adopted by coin-collectors, and to range them on trays in the shallow drawers of coin-cabinets. Where the pieces are few in number, it is a good plan to mount them on a board covered with black velvet, and to frame them just as one does a picture. To have no particular method of keeping them, to leave them lying loose in drawers, or to place them as casual ornaments in curio or china cabinets is decidedly wrong, for a few scratches, a fall, or a little rough handling will often reduce considerably the value of a specimen.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be well to mention that not only does the value of a medal depend upon its state of preservation—that is to say, whether it is in mint condition, slightly rubbed, much worn, scratched, battered, re-engraved, etc.—but also upon the number of clasps that go with it. It must not be thought that collectors tolerate the indiscriminate adding of clasps to claspless medals. A medal that was awarded with, say, one additional honour cannot be turned into a three-clasp decoration by purchasing two clasps from a dealer and placing them upon the slide ribbon. The medal in question, if it be less than a hundred years old, has the name of the original possessor engraved upon the flange, and by turning to the Medal Rolls the number of clasps issued with the particular decoration can be found. Another factor which affects the value of a medal is the regiment to which it was issued. A medal given to a private in a crack regiment will possess a greater value than an identical medal awarded to a private in a less noted one. The rank of the recipient is also taken into account; this, however, is perhaps only natural.
