TOPIC:

QSA's are often officially renamed as was mentioned above to Nurses and also to Australians.

I wonder if other Colonials had their renamed too, as it was too hard to send them back to get another from London.

But it does put buyers off. However that is an opportunity for us who realise these are not renamed as such. Just reused.

Ryan

It is important to be quite clear on this, an officially renamed medal is exactly that, a medal that has been renamed at the mint only, anything else is spurious and is without any real value.

[quote="rdarby" post=44437

I wonder if other Colonials had their renamed too, as it was too hard to send them back to get another from London.

[/quote]

Frank and interested others
On a City Coins listing,they offered a QSA which was accompanied by official paperwork authorising a local (i.e., South African) jeweller to undertake renaming. It sounded interesting and I did put in a reasonable bid - but lost out. Later this evening, I will have a trawl through my CC catalogues as reassurance that memory is not at fault here. I had never heard of the abovementioned practice before. Has anyone else knowledge of it?
IL.

Hi Ian
You are referring to the so-called "Cape Naming" Register.
The copy found at the Cape Archives some 30 years ago covered the period Dec 1904 to Nov 1908. I enclose a scan of a typical page covering part of May/June 1907



The second entry in June (Gladwin) refers to a medal I sold on City Coins where the unit was altered from Eat Griqualand Field Force to Herschel Native Police.
Without the supporting Register copy page it would have been simply a defective medal.
There are records of well over 400 locally engraved/impressed SAGS and Cape GS medals and numerous cases of major changes on QSA's, etc.
From another source (the hand-written copy of the lost Issue Register for the CofGHGSMedal) it is clear that the local naming was done prior to Dec 1904 and even as late as 1912. However, registers are not available.
Henk

Those lists are amazing Henk and could clear up, I feel sure, many a query for members here who may have renamed medals or even medals where clasp have been officially added.

Are these lists in the public domain or are look ups possible?

Regards

Rory

Henk
Yes, that was the one. City Coins Auction 58 featured the medal you mentioned. The description of lot 132 includes the statement: "The medal was skimmed in total, and rank name and unit reimpressed" (upside down). The City Coins description refers to Armstrong and Co. doing the work.
Regards
IL.