TOPIC:

Hi,
I have been/am a keen miniature medal group collector since I was a teenager in the 1980's.
I recently restructured my collection to attributable groups only. One of my first groups was a Boer War group and I am desperate to attribute it rather than replace it.

The group contains the below medals and I wondered if there is anywhere I can find a list of 'Unit's which were present for the bars awarded? I can then narrow the search down to a specific unit(s) and then hopefully on to the recipient.

QSA Medal Bars x 4
Dreifontien
Paardeberg
Relief of Kimberley
Cape Colony


KSA Bar x 1
1901

The complete group is as follows;
CBE
DSO (GV) Gold
QSA (4)
KSA (1)
Mons Star (1)
British War Medal
Victory Medal + MiD

Any pointers greatfully received

Thanks

Hi

British Battles & Medals, the excellent reference book, sets out the units whose members were involved in each action for which a clasp to the QSA was awarded That will indicate which units were involved. Narrowing your man down would still be a huge task. However, the key may be the single clasp KSA, of which there were only about 520 awarded, if I remember rightly. There must be a list somewhere of the single-clasp recipients, perhaps in a OMRS journal? I'm wondering if the Relief of Kimberley and CC clasps were legitimately awarded together, as Kimberley falls in the Cape?

Best regards

Peter Jordi

Hello

The glitch with the QSA clasps is that Relief of Kimberley and Cape Colony couldn't legitimately be awarded on the same medal. The rule was that a state clasp (in this case CC) couldn't be awarded if a battle clasp for the same 'state' (in this case RoK) was awarded.

The short answer is that no units legitimately received that combination but, even discounting the CC clasp, many units (too many to list) received the RoK, Driefontein and Paardeberg clasps.

Regards

David

Musicaldirector,

I would agree with Peter and David on the authenticity of the Boer War medals in this group. The QSA is impossible and the KSA is highly unusual.

There is an on-going discussion on single clasp KSAs.

I have had a go at trying to attribute a couple miniature QSA groups and failed, one even had a Portuguese award. But even with this rare award associated with a QSA was impossible to attribute as the miniature group did not match the medals and clasps earned by the recipients of the Portuguese award.

I don't believe the tailor putting together a miniature group on behalf of the recipient was too careful - if it "looked right", it was ok - hence the problem with this group.

Thank you to everyone who replied. That's made my decision to sell them much easier to make.