Article about: Picked up today, bronze medallion with the following text on it,on one side it has, Transvaal Souvenir 1899-1900 with an image in the center of in the foreground a sailor and soldier, two ca
Picked up today, bronze medallion with the following text on it,on one side it has,
Transvaal Souvenir 1899-1900
with an image in the center of in the foreground a sailor and soldier, two cannons of different types and a ship in the background with a flag in the center and they are stood on a ground above the words,
The Queen God Bless Her. On the front are also two other markings, one I assume is the maker, FENWICK.DEL.F and the other is RD. 355487 which is a patent or design number?
On the other side is,
at the top, UNITED IN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM and at the bottom is WE DEFEND OUR EMPIRE, both of which curve around a central design of two shields with coats of arms on them, one for the Commonwealth (with symbols for Australia & Canada etc..) and the other for Gt. Britain, surrounded by sprays of laurel, thistles, Roses and Shamrocks.
Below is another scroll with WE SERVE UNDER ONE CROWN and in between is a pair of hands grasped in a hand shake. The RD number is repeated here, so registered design perhaps.
Not seen one of these before, but 2nd Boer war I assume, whilst it was still going on and probably before Queen Victoria died in January 1901. The flagpole on the first side is surmounted with a QVC (Queen Victoria Crown), whilst the second side has the Guelphic crown introduced during the late Victorian period which bears a similarity to the slightly later used Kings Crown.
Thanks to all. An unusual item and a welcome addition to my collection, you gotta love (or not) the period jingoistic sentiments it expresses, very similar in tone to one of the Boer war plates I own. Not at all PC, but then many consider the Boer war to have not been very PC and in some ways more the end of an era than WWI was, though the latter was the final act of an older tradition and way of life which was never seen again.
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