Howdy all. My name is Theresa (Teri for short), I am from California and am not a collector but my late father was. He collected everything, at least it felt like it. My mom, Marlene, would say he collected everything but women so she was okay with his collections. He passed away almost six years ago from cancer and left a huge number of collections for my mom to sell or donate. Only the books are being donated and then only some of them. His two favorite collections were British Victory Medals from WWI and Pepsi (his favorite two things were history, especially British, and drinking Pepsi so I guess it makes sense). Over the years he started picking up pairs and trios (the War medals and Stars). Since he loved history, he loved to research those who were awarded these medals - he believed that as long as one person remembered that person they never really died. He had rows of books in his library on who's who, who was who, roll call lists, etc. Before the internet, other collectors would write or call him to research for them since he had so much reference material at his fingertips. Well, that desire to learn about the history of the soldiers and sailors led him backwards to the Anglo-Boer War and the QSAs and KSAs. He was in the USN for over 20 years so he had a fondness for cap tallies for various navies (I have become an expert on the US ones, but still learning about how to tell the difference in ages for the British ones). He also collected collar disks, boy scout stuff, CMTC (his father was in it), and anything else that did not move in time.
Since neither my mom or I are experts in QSAs (but I do enjoy learning new things), we have been very basic in our listings on eBay. If I can find a note that a recipient was KIA then I will mention it but I do not know the difference in clasps or bars. I know my father would never have bought a fake or altered medal and most of his purchases were from catalogs he received from reputable dealers (at least I hope they were reputable). If anyone has a good resource for QSAs, I would love to get it. I have not had a chance to poke around here much yet so I will maybe find what I am looking for here. I do not know the value of these medals because my father did not want my mother to know how much he spent so we do not sell outside of eBay and do auctions only. He did not have all his medals cataloged because I have all the binders of lists that we have found and not everything we have found in boxes is in the binders. I do not mind looking up to see if we have a medal listed but will not find a medal to list (of course, if I tell my mother which one is being asked for and she knows where a box of those medals are - he has dozens of boxes of 30 to 60 medals each - she will give a quick look and list it in the next grouping).
My eBay account is Terryana1969 and my mother's is MotherPrairie so give us a look - we list new every other weekend (Saturdays at Noon Pacific for me and both Saturday and Sunday starting at Noon for her). She takes the pictures but I have the collection binders. You can PM me here if you want me to look to see if we have something. If anyone can help me find out who H.S. Lyons was (our notes say he was with the Daily Mail), I would appreciate it. We have a QSA for him and it looks like my father paid a lot of money for it (one of the few he put a price on). Thanks in advance. Teri
