Canadian medal experts, need your help please.*update*

[RobSmith]

A buddy of mine brought me 4 medals today, 3 from ww2 and one from Korea. The local pawn shop apparently offered 12$ for the lot so I matched them (for now).

All 4 appear to be silver (some obvious tarnish with scratches indicating an attempt at polishing).

One of them is a ww2 volunteer service medal (without ribbon).


The 3 others I'm not sure about :

One is marked 1939-1945 THE DEFENSE MEDAL (without ribbon) .

The other is marked 1939-1945 on the top and has some sort of lion standing on top of some sort of 4 legged creature with 2 bird's head and what looks like a rat's tail (without ribbon).

The last is marked Korea, has a some sort of Greek god stabbing a bunch of snakes and is engraved R.T. MUIR 8693 H (yellow and blue ribbon).

I'll post pictures later on if it helps.

In the meantime, any idea what they might be and a fair market value ?

 

[redrommel]

One is marked 1939-1945 THE DEFENSE MEDAL (without ribbon) .

WW2 Defence Medal:
The 1939-45 Defence Medal was a campaign medal of the British Commonwealth, awarded for service in World War II. It was instituted to recognise both military and some types of civilian service.

The other is marked 1939-1945 on the top and has some sort of lion standing on top of some sort of 4 legged creature with 2 bird's head and what looks like a rat's tail (without ribbon).

WW2 War Medal:
The War Medal 1939-1945 was a British decoration awarded to those who had served in the Armed Forces and Merchant Marines full-time for at least 28 days between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945. In the Merchant Navy, the 28 days must have been served at sea.

Have no idea about the Korean one but likely a campaign medal. None of these are particularly rare but $12 is outright robbery, especially if they all belong to the same soldier. On somewhere like ebay you could get $20 or more each based on condition and if the ribbon is there. If they all belong to the same person and you have them mounted (replacing the missing ribbons) I imagine you could get a decent buck for the set.

 

[j-man]

The Korean medal is the Canadian Korea Medal. Details here:

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/cmdp/mainmenu/group04/km

$12 for the set is the equivalent of anal rape. These aren't particularly rare medals but if all 4 can be traced to the same soldier, the value would certainly increase. In the case of the Korean medal, it was issued to MUIR (name and service number on the medal). Some research could make for a nice project. Ebay value is probably around the $30-40 mark per coin, depending on condition. You might be able to get a couple hundred for the set depending on the results of your research; more if MUIR did something special.

 

[53pan]

The 3 WW II medals have are as RR stated the fourth is the War Medal for Korea. The service number indicates this was a Navy guy from Halifax. It was always issued with the UN service medal for Korea, but not vice versa. Navy medals are rarer than Army ones which generally fetch $100.00 and up. Hope this helps.
53pan

 

[RobSmith]

I have an update. I ended up settling with my buddy for 40$ for the lot and he brought me some more goodies to go with them today at the office.

1 UN Korea medal named to the same Muir individual as the other one

1 cap badge that reads "The black watch" "Royal highlanders" so that's pretty self-explanatory.

1 other medal-like gizmo, it has the "scales of justice" on it, the thing is golden and has what appears to be "mother of pearl" background. What baffles me about this one is that it has no markings what so ever except for a faint B on one of the links on the chain that holds it, and when hung from it's factory "safety pin" (for lack of a better description) the "scales of justice" are canted at a 45ish degree angle. I'm thinking that may be some sort of device intended to secure a judge or lawyer's robes.

I was able to establish that these items come from my buddy's stepfather, who'se name is not Muir and as far as my buddy knows there are no Muirs in the family, which leads me to believe the items are coming from the secondary market.

Now the fun begins : I know about the 25 year post-mortem rule regarding the release of sevice records, so how would a guy go about looking up someone that, for all I know, may still be alive ?

BTW : thanks to J-man and 53pan for your prompt replies.

 

[53pan]

Rob
You got yourself a bargain. Congrats. Obtaining his records is done the same either way, but they will be heavily censored if he is still around. I got my Grandfathers file before the 25 year mark and all the personal info was blacked out, but I already knew that anyway so it was no big deal for me. No idea on the other badge you picked up doesn't sound like anything I've encountered before. There are many variations on the Black Watch badge, some common some not so much. Happy hunting.
53pan

 

[Seaforth]

Canadian military service records are available uncensored from Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa IF...
1. The veteran requests them
2. The veteran is deceased fewer than 20 years but next of kin request them.
3. The veteran has been dead for 20 years or more.

World War I Canadian attestation records are available on-line for free SOLDIERS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR at Library and Archives Canada. Usually a 2-sided document. Commonwealth WWI and WWII dead can usually be found at www.cwgc.org

From L&AC - My Grandmother's WWI Army Nurse records cost about $20. My Dad's WWII and Post-war records cost about $90.

You want to try to find his death record. e.g. Obituary. Check with local genealogy groups and on-line for vital records for your province. Some provinces are better than others. BC is great. Ask at local reference desk in library or genealogical society. If you think you know which Legion he may have belonged to, ask there.