Mid air collision survivor

Thank you I have a confession to make; when we first announced the idea of producing a commemorative medallion to mark Token Publishing’s 20th Anniversary this year, I honestly believed that we would get a mere handful of responses – not, I hasten to add, because I don’t believe MEDAL NEWS readers capable of producing great designs but rather because this isn’t a “medal “ as most of our readers know it (although one or two didget the wong end of the stick and suggested colours for ribbons too!) and after all this was a somewhat self indulgent request. Or so I thought. Happily you proved me very wrong on both counts, not only did dozens of you take the time to sit down and produce some very very good designs but still more of you were kind enough to send in your messages of goodwill, congratulations and support at our reaching this milestone. Since establishing the company in the dark days of the Early eighties (remember that recession) I have always tried to run it with one aim in mind – to encourage collectors and help the hobby of medal collecting grow (after all it’s a win/win situation for Token if we can achieve that – the more people who collect the more people will buy the magazine!) and in order to achieve that aim I have always been careful to do my best to produce a magazine that the readers will want to pick up and read month after month. We made the bold leap in 1989 to split MEDAL NEWS from its sister publication COIN NEWS and really from that moment on haven’t looked back – we like to think that the current surge of interest in the hobby has been partly our doing, as we have done our utmost in the past two decades (and certainly since 1989) to make this once “fringe” pastime into something more mainstream. Certainly it hasn’t always possible to please all of the people all of the time and I’m sure there will be those of you out there who would want to see more articles on Victorian Campaigns and less on World War I or more on World War I and less on the Boer War etc. etc. but that is the nature of the hobby and I know that the readers who are still with me after twenty years understand that the diversity of medal collecting and military history means that every month there will inevitably be some subjects covered and some not. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to matter to the thousands of you who read MEDAL NEWS every month for you are a very loyal bunch; not only have you stuck by the magazine through all its ups and downs over the past two decades but you also seem to want to get involved with the things that we do. You buy the magazine, you buy our books and, it seems, want to help us celebrate our anniversaries – as has been so wonderfully demonstrated recently. With this “loyalty” in mind we have decided that not only do we want one of our readers to have produced the winning design but we would also like all our other readers to help choose just what that design should be – and so we have drawn up a shortlist of five of the best designs we have received and want you to vote for the one you like the best. The five have been chosen as much for their concept, originality of thought and practicality (we had some wonderful designs submitted that just simply would not work once struck) as their artistic merit, and I hope you will agree that all are worthy of “winning” – however only one can and once all the votes are in and counted and a design has been chosen we plan to have enough of the medallions struck to allow every reader of COIN NEWS and MEDAL NEWS to add one to their collections – just another way of saying “thank you” to you all – you deserve it.