Military Medal

London saleroom Dix Noonan Webb has bought the 'Britannia Medal Fair' “to ensure that it can remain at the Victory Services Club”, the central London venue where it has attracted dealers and collectors for more than 30 years.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

The honours of the last Duke of Cambridge (before Prince William) will be in the spotlight at a London auction this summer.

“Full steam ahead” is the battle cry of Marcus Budgen, the soon-to-be head of the medals department at Spink. He is due to replace David Erskine-Hill who is leaving that role following an ‘offer he can’t refuse’ – to be the curator of the best collection of Victoria Crosses in the world.

One of the finest Victoria Cross medals awarded to a Canadian recipient will be staying in Canada thanks to a successf ul fundraising campaign.

Marcus Budgen is to head the Spink medals department after the departure of David Erskine-Hill.

The Zulu War medal awarded to Driver Charles Robson, batman to commanding officer Lieutenant John Chard during the epic defence of Rorke’s Drift, sold for £110,000 at Dix Noonan Webb on March 2.

London coins and medals specialist Dix Noonan Webb is changing its management structure.

An Arctic Medal with a provenance indicating it was awarded to a member of the doomed Franklin Expedition which vanished searching for the elusive Northwest Passage has surfaced at a Surrey auction house.

Tis the season to sell Victoria Crosses… three have come up at auction recently and posted strong results, including a world record.

We know how it usually goes with most stand-out Victoria Crosses offered at auction: Lord Ashcroft buys them and they go on display at his gallery in the Imperial War Museum in London. But the record for a VC sold at auction, which has recently been set at London saleroom Morton & Eden, actually went to another bidder with very deep pockets – but thankfully for medals enthusiasts, someone else who is looking to put it on public view.

“I died in hell – they called it Passchendaele,” Siegfried Sassoon famously wrote of the First World War carnage which ended in November 1917.

Originally due to be hosted by Rome, the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius meant that London was a late replacement to hold the fourth modern Olympiad in 1908.

An unusual medals sale has led to an unusual outcome. An application is to be made to export from Canada the Victoria Cross group won by heroic Lieutenant Colonel David Currie after it was bought by a British private collector.