A Fake Distinguished Service Medal

 

Ian R. Hartley

 

As the market for medals continues to grow, so too will the opportunities for the unscrupulous to make financial gains from the unwary, especially as the increasing interest in medals generates many newcomers to the hobby of medal collecting.  Medals for gallantry are particularly sought after, so it is important to be aware of any fakes or copies in circulation.  Although some WW1 and WW2 British gallantry medals were issued un-named to foreign servicemen, there seems to be a rather large number of these un-named examples on the market.  Clearly, many are high quality copies and it is only a small step from obtaining good copies to adding a name on the edge.  I recently came across a George VI Distinguished Service Medal with engraved naming to 'A.B. T.M. Evans D/JX.394305', which was apparently awarded for the Normandy landings in 1944.  It was, unfortunately, a fake and the description here should help beginners and others to identify similar medals which may be in circulation: there are at least two with this name.

       The medal disc is a good cast copy in silver.  It has not been die-struck as the originals were, so it has several tell-tale signs which can be seen under a hand lens.  Because it has been cast, the flat fields on both sides of the medal are not perfectly smooth, but pitted with the sort of texture that a crumbly cheese might have if it were compressed (Fig 1).  There are occasional small holes, especially near lettering or detail and, on close inspection, some of the lettering is not as well defined as it would be on an original medal (Fig 2).

  On the obverse, there are a few small silver spheres attached to the crown in the wrong places (arrowed in Fig 3).  These are a by-product of the casting process but can clearly be seen when compared with a similar King's head from a WW2 War Medal for example. The mould for the cast would be full size, as it was made from an original medal, but hot metal shrinks on cooling, so this copy is slightly under-sized.  It has a diameter of 35.5 mm rather than 36.5 mm.  On the obverse, the rim is rather unevenly cast around them medal, so that field rises up to the rim on the left side.  On the reverse, the rim on the immediate right of the clasp is thinner (Fig 4), presumably where the word 'copy' has been polished off.

The clasp looks original and may have been taken from another medal which carries this type of clasp, such as the British War Medal 1914-20.  Under a hand lens, there are visible signs on the obverse where a drill has slipped when fixing the clasp; it leaves a characteristic swirling scratch (Figs 5 and 6).  Naming is in engraved capitals, as is correct for the later part of WW2, although perhaps not quite as neat as one would expect on an original (Fig 7).

Many of the features described here are only visible after close inspection under a hand lens, or even under a low powered microscope.  As ever, the message is caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, but a knowledge of the basic types of fakes and copies, like this one, will help to prevent expensive mistakes on other areas as well.

 

 

Figure 1.   Close-up of field on obverse, showing texture of cast surface.

 

 

Figure 2.  Close-up of reverse, showing poor definition of lettering and holes in the surface characteristic of the casting process.

 

 

 

Figure 3.  Close up of the King's crown showing the silver spheres (arrowed) produced by the casting process.

 

 

Figure 4.  Close-up of the obverse rim by the clasp, which shows signs of thinning, probably due to removal of the impressed word 'copy'.

 

 

Figure 5.  Close-up of obverse showing characteristic swirling scratch from drill slippage during clasp fitting.

 

 

Figure 6.  Detail of obverse showing characteristic swirling scratch from drill slippage during clasp fitting (A), silver spheres from the casting process (B) and characteristic pitting in the field (C).

 

 

Figure 7.  Example of engraved lettering on the fake medal.

 

 

 

Links

 

Air Crew Europe Stars - identifying copies and originals

 

Battle of Britain clasps - identifying copies and originals

 

If you want to comment or add to this, you can e-mail me via i.hartley ‘at’ Lancaster.ac.uk.

 

Ian Hartley

31st March 2008

 

Copyright to Ian Hartley.  This page cannot be reproduced in any form without the author’s permission