Unusual requests

Most of my time is focused on medals however, every now and then I get unusual requests. I've been asked to return dog tags, fobs and watches. While I list them in various publications I don't put in as much effort into the research as I would medals. That being said I've been pretty successful getting dog tags back to current serving soldiers or veterans.
One of the most unusual requests I've had was to return a sword to a WWII veteran. The sword was easily identifiable to this particular officer so I took on the challenge. I usually insist on the medals being sent to me, and I'll explain why later, but in this case I thought it best that the sword stay with the person who had current ownership until I found the family.
I can now happily report that we have located the niece of the officer and I've arranged for the two parties to contact each other and the sword be returned. Bill did the majority of the work for this one and he is to congratulated on his efforts. Below is a picture of the sword once owned by MAJ William Tresidder.

The reason that I insist that the medals be sent to me is that I've had a couple of unfortunate incidents recently. Having been contacted by people with medals they wanted me to do the research for them but not been prepared to let me care for them. In some cases the research has taken some time and when I go to let the people with the medals know I've located the family, they have moved with out letting me know. I then have another search to find the people with the medals. This leaves the family upset and confused.
In one case I even had the person with the medal change their mind. They didn't want to return the medals to the family despite requesting me too find them and after I had gone to some trouble to find the family. I hope this is not to much to expect.