When I received this WWII War Medal I was really confused. The medal only had a service number on it but no name. The surface appeared to be stippled, this is the only way I can describe the texture of the medal. The die does not appear to have left as crisp an impression as I have come to expect. This can be seen in picture of the obverse and reverse of the medal. Also the letters and digits of the service number are spaced quite a way apart which is unusual.
The number on the medal is TX80 meaning the medal was intended for Tasmanian solider, John Wilton. I didn't have much luck locating his family but I did spend a bit of time researching the condition of the medal.
This medal came to me with several others in a similar condition. The others were either not named or the impressing was indistinct. What I worked out was this medal probably was a reject but for some reason was not destroyed as it should have been.
Earlier this week I received an email from Allen R who is a friend of John's son. I have now been connected with the Wilton family and I know that they have the full group of medals awarded to John. This is quite an unusual set of circumstances. It is not the first time I've come across two officially named medals to the same person what don't fall in to the replacement/duplicate category, however, this is the first time I've seen such an obvious mistake. I'll send the medal to the family to keep with the officially awarded group.
The returned medal tally is now 1702.
Good detective work :)
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