Medal News

Volume 62, Number 3, March 2024

Bridge 277

Volume 62, Number 3, March 2024

On the shoulders of giants RECENTLY, we have decided to have a bit of a clear out. We’re closing one of our storage units and, in the process of sorting, came across the entire Medal Tracker archive, stretching back decades, and thought “these may as well go too”. It was a logical decision, a sensible decision, and we decided to keep just the last five years and burn the rest (we always burn or shred any documents that have personal information on, we never simply throw anything away, so you don’t need to worry about that!). The filing cabinet full of old Tracker forms was due to be emptied a week later and then, with three days to go, somebody contacted us saying that they had a medal that appeared in Medal Tracker some 16 years ago! Seriously, a reader was looking through an old magazine from 2008 (how is 2008 16 years ago? Surely 16 years ago is 1997 or thereabouts) and spotted a familiar name. Sure enough, upon further investigation, he found that the medal being sought was one he’d been looking at on a dealer’s website only a few days earlier, so he contacted us and we then contacted the original searcher. We hope the story will have a happy outcome! Then, rather bizarrely, a week later we had another reader call us up wanting to be put in touch with someone who was searching for a medal seven years ago because the recipient was actually the reader’s grandfather and he wondered why someone else was searching for his grandad’s medals! We passed his details on to the original enquirer and, again, hope there’s a happy outcome. So, as you can imagine, we are now no longer getting rid of our Medal Tracker archive! That people are still reading our magazines many years after they were published is gratifying, but isn’t really a surprise, we know that people are coming into the hobby all the time, know that themes change regularly and research is an ongoing process; that’s why we produce the cumulative index to MEDAL NEWS, because we know the articles we published 20 years ago, 30 years ago, are still relevant to collectors today. Yes, over time new information comes to light and certain elements to some histories are either discredited or amended, but more often than not a piece on a regiment, a ship, an action or an individual will only add to your knowledge rather than detract from it. We wouldn’t, of course, recommend only reading research from 30 years ago, things do move on, but nor would we recommend discounting it entirely—what was written then can be as relevant today as it was three decades ago. Many of you will know the Sir Isaac Newton quote (that was paraphrased on the edge of the £2 coin) “If I have seen further, it is only because I was standing on the shoulders of giants”—meaning, of course, that only because of those who went before was he able to achieve what he did. So it is with historical and military research, we know much of what we read and rely on today solely because others laid the ground work years ago. At MEDAL NEWS, we are delighted to be able to publish articles that shed new light on old topics for many today, but we are also proud to have been able to publish some real gems from heavyweights of our hobby over the years. Their knowledge lives on today because they put pen to paper and got their work in print (websites just don’t cut it for me I’m afraid, they’re all well and good until somebody stops paying the bills and the whole thing vanishes, give me hard copy any day) and it’s still available now if you want to look for it, but hurry, knowledge is always eagerly sought after and sometimes there’s a finite supply—see “News & Views” for more details! The cumulative index to MEDAL NEWS is available in the deluxe MEDAL YEARBOOK or online (www.tokenpublishing.com) as a digital download that’s free to subscribers.

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