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Although collecting and trading medals can be financially lucrative, the true
collector is in it more for the history medals represent. "Research" is the key word in
the Orders and Medals Research Society.
"Every single medal has a story and a history attached to it," said Mr Ma. "The
fun for us is discovering what that story is."
Echoed Superintendent Chris Bilham, a Society member and avid collector. "The
interesting thing about medals is doing the research, finding out what you can about the
life and times of the person to whom the medal was awarded. Very often you can obtain
their records of service from the Defence Department, the Police Department, other institutions,
or from the recipient or his family. For example, the Hong Kong Plague medal was one
of the first that the Hong Kong Government issued for the part played by the Army and
the police to enforce public health during an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong
in 1894."
And the research is always challenging. With Hong Kong Police medals pre-WWII,
the chances of finding any documentation such as service records on recipients is almost
nil because all the documentary records were destroyed during the Japanese invasion.
Added another Society member CIP Karl Spencer: "I went back to the newspapers
of 1894 and found an article on the Plague Committee thanking the police for their help.
It mentions each of the officers who received medals and describes what they did to receive
them. Bruno even managed to get a copy of the police officer's (whose Plague medal he has)
contract to join the police force which he signed in the 1800s. It's a fascinating snippet
of history."
According to the newspaper account, there should have been 36 Plague medals
awarded to police officers. But in the course of the last 80 years only three of them have
been seen by anybody. Two of them belong to CIP Spencer, and the third is in the Hong
Kong Police museum.
In Hong Kong, some collectors concentrate on specific medals like the ones
awarded to the Hong Kong Police District Watchmen, while others concentrate on medals
relating to the various wars which have taken place on the China Coast, while still others
collect medals from a particular regiment.
During the Boxer Rebellion, members of the First China Regiment were all given
silver medals. Although there were 600 to 700 medals given out, it's believed that none of
them survived because they were made of solid silver and were melted down by the
recipients, or later by their relatives.
The biggest problem for medal collectors is invariably with their wives, who tend
to scream at their husbands for dropping a cool $20,000 on a coveted medal.
"My usual habit is to tell my wife: 'The price that I paid is only one-tenth the real
worth of the medal'," Mr Ma smirked.
Speaking of value, CIP Spencer's biggest "find" occurred not to long ago in a junk
shop in Causeway Bay among a load of keyrings hanging in a glass cabinet. "As I was flicking
through them I noticed that one was this solid silver Police Lantern Lighter medal," he recalled.
"I recognised it as being a very valuable medal. I got it for $500 and eventually sold it for
$15,000."
Laughed CIP Spencer: "Bruno later told the shopkeeper what a fool he'd been for
selling it to me for so cheap a price. Bruno just couldn't resist going to the shop and telling
the poor guy."
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