In the news this weekend
 

After being amazed at the good spirit shown in Charliedogs recent post about finding his Great Uncle's Medal and the spirit and kindness shown, i wonder what members might think of this story that appeared over the weekend. I couldn't even contemplate what this guy would of thought seeing his own Medal at a Farnham Militaria sale, just shows two sides of the coin and IMHO not a very nice side of the collecting world!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Army-LOST.html

Regards Mark

This dealer should return the medal to its rightful owner no matter what,it is still a stolen medal. The court should have at least orderd it be returned to the MOD,

What are the RMP doing about this. Indeed what is the regiment doing about it? Any former Blues on here to ask the question of RHQ!

Disappointed

Stephen

The dealer's final sentence say it all. Of course he could give the medal back to the recipient, but he won't. Mike

Next person who sees the medal should nick it, and I would be at the front of the long, long que.

As you say, exact opposite sides of the coin. It is wonderful in my own case to know that such kind and generous people in the world in whom you can place your trust fully are still out there in the world when so many people seem to be interested in their own gain .....then it becomes all the sadder that there are people who put money before goodness of spirit. Giving back the medal would have lost the dealer money but gained him huge respect. He should have the grace to treat the soldier with understanding and courtesy in full acknowledgement of his bravery.

Cannot believe what I have just read, utterly shameful.......................I wonder if the other missing medals will surface?

It's bad enough to deny a medal to a family member, but to the very man that it was awarded to??

Makes James' case all the more special. Good people do still exist, just wish there was more of them.

Tim

What I can't understand is how they come to be stolen. They were in the possession of an RSM one minute and gone the next. There cannot have been that many people with access to them. The MoD Police/Military Police must surely have conducted an investigation, that is assuming the Regiment reported them stolen. Perhaps the Regiment did nothing, which I find difficult to believe. There is something which does not quite ring true about all this. There is a part of the story which is not being being made public. The Police Property Act allows the Magistrates to decide ownership when that is in dispute. Without knowing what was actually said at court and what evidence was presented by the parties involved it is difficult to come to a rational conclusion. A very strange business!

Dave

PS. Having just re-read the news item it says that the intended recipient (not the MoD) reported the medal stolen (presumably to Dorset Police). However, the medal was never presented to him so never became his property. The medal belonged to the MoD, no one else. I'll wager that the soldier went to court and said it was his medal and when asked when it was last in his possession he would have to say, "Well I never actually received it". That being the case, and (presumably) the MoD saying nothing, the rightful owner would be the militaria dealer who bought the medal in good faith and paid the market price for it!

Sadly there do appear to be a number of dealers who regard their stock as just that, a business asset,and they have no more feelings towards their stock than they would have if they were selling nuts and bolts.

P.B.

I concur with Altcar's synopsis and i suppose as the theft was under military law (being on military property and being itself military property) and not civil law, a mismatch occurred in the court. I sure Mr Richard Tigwell could show he bought it in good faith but when all is said and done, i believe he had the opportunity to right a wrong and chose not to!

The dealer behaved badly and this is a very sad story. But ...

Medals remain the property of the MOD until the soldier leaves the army when ownership changes.

It would seem there was no "crime number" so it would be very hard to prove this medal was stolen.

Medal collectors can quote endless cases in which collectors have returned medals to the recipient or family only to see them pop up on eBay within days.

I would be very, very, very reluctant to "return" a medal except at current commercial value. In fact the very best advice offered on medal forums is to agree to turn the medal over in return for an equally desirable replacement.

Eddie

Eddie, you make a valid point and i had forgotten, that should a serviceman or ex serviceman be sentenced to a period of time at Her Majesty's pleasure, he also forfeits the rights to those medals and (although i'm not aware of a case) can have them taken off him.

Quite frankly, that the regiment could simply "lose" the "sergeants" medal is bad enough, but, to simply send an unnamed replacement to the recipient after a number of years is a complete disgrace, even if the recipient had left the regiment, if that was the case, in my opinion, at least, he should have been asked to present himself at Combermere, where, hopefully, Gold Stick or Silver Stick, or perhaps, the latter's Adjutant, might have speared even just five minutes of their time to hand it over in person.
Very disappointing indeed, moreover, Messr's Bryan and Tigwell should hang their heads in shame.

‘A couple of days beforehand, the regimental sergeant major called us into his office to show us our medals. But on the actual day we never received them.

I would say the RSM should be careful about who has access to his office

GTB

Well quite, who had access to the medals in the first place the article suggests more than one medal was "lost" I take what I read on occasion in the Daily Wail with a pinch of salt, there are no sergeants in the Household Cavalry other than those attached, but, the lost medals must have been a no brainer to investigate surely?

It sounds to me as though someone's career was saved from ignominy by the regiment.

I have to say if I was offered one or more of these medals as a job lot at a car boot sale, alarm bells would start ringing, the HCR is not the RLC, those medals are named LG or RHG/D, that medal is certainly worth rather more than a mere two hundred pounds and they only seldom turn up being offered for sale, named, to members of the Household Cavalry, if it had been an officers medal, my first thoughts would have been, certainly, probably stolen.