Welcome

Hello and welcome to my first post of this blog. As I have said in the header I am using a blog to compliment my main web site Lost Medals Australia.

When we first set up Lost Medals Australia my webmaster, Scott and I discussed adding a forum. We decided that a forum would require significant administration, time I would prefer to spend on research. As the popularity and exposure of Lost Medals Australia has spread, I have had many people enquire about how they can gain more knowledge about their families military service. I am hopeful that using this blog I can direct people to the appropriate research resource and share my knowledge with others.

One request that I continually receive is to locate medals that are missing. Unfortunately, this is an almost impossible task. My method is to obtain the medals and then find the family. The other way around is very difficult. Indeed, I have only managed to achieve this once. If medals were sold during The Depression, for example, they are now likely to be in a private collection. Therefore, the rightful owner is the person who has subsequently purchased the medals. Also there is no central database of collections (private and public) or of medals currently up for sale in 2nd hand shops and the like. All I can suggest at times like this is to regularly check the militaria section of online auction sites like ebay.

One of the pages on Lost Medals Australia shows pictures of some of our success stories. We consider that this is not an appropriate page for general pictures of medals. However, I get many enquiries for pictures of the types of medals Australians have been awarded. I plan to use this blog to display pictures of the medals that come in to my care. I have also gained a bit of an understanding of naming conventions on medals. I'll include pictures of some of the different names and styles I have come across.

I have also received many medals that are not what they appear. There is, unfortunately, many fake medals on the open market. I have some examples of fake medals and will include some photos of these.

Research like this would not be possible without the assistance of a great backup team. I've mentioned Scott who is my webmaster and chap on the ground in Brisbane. Scott has done a great job setting up the Lost Medals Australia web site. He is also responsible for his own web site about the Defence of Arnhem by the Germans during WWII. Scott is a talented historian in his own right and is currently working on two books.

A recent edition to the Lost Medals Australia family is Bill Wyndham, a retired Australian Army officer, who devotes his time to assisting families uncover their military history. Bill has been a real asset to me in recent months and managed to draw many searches to a conclusion.

There are many others who have provided me assistance by checking records, photographing headstones and chasing down obscure references. To all those people, thank you, especially; Kim W, Sandra, Morris, Tim L, Bill W and Sue (Steve) B.

Thank you for reading my blog and please visit often as I hope to update it regularly. Please visit my main web page, Lost Medals Australia, and I invite you to sign the guest book.