HAS ANYBODY SEEN THIS MEDAL GROUPING TO A MOH RECIPIENT

[firefighter]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/panamadave/m.html?item=380864376876&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58ad49302c&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

 

[firefighter]

Thought this was interesting.They printed the ribbon upside down.The stars are suppose to make an 'M' not a 'W'.

 

[GIKyle]

Beautifully broken up too!

[Dakota]

Surprised Ebay ain't removed it.

 

 

 

D

[Kman1752]

For decades these medals have stayed together as they should be, until some greedy seller gets ahold of them and splits them up, sending them off to different parts of the world. That just irritates the hell outta me. Hopefully some collector with deep pockets will keep them together. I find it extremely sad that most people are driven by greed and have no respect for history or the original owner of such items.

[manayunkman]

There is no MOH so there is nothing to remove in this case.

[KASTAUFFER]

What a shame and I bet he has the missing medal too.

 

Kurt

[aerialbridge]

What a shame and I bet he has the missing medal too.

 

Kurt

 

 

Disgusting to see a such a group that hung together for a century get split up "for a few dollars more". It's going to take more than a little luck and a whole lotta scratch to keep it together. But you never know, if enough potential bidders are turned off by this shred, maybe the sum of the parts won't be too much higher than the whole. I wouldn't take your bet and wouldn't be surprised if he's strategizing how he's going to finesse that transfer at maximum profit while avoiding, uh, trouble with a capital "T". Bad karma IMO and sad situation all the way around.

[firefighter]

I agree with all of you.The first thing that I too thought of was how this amazing and very historic group is being broken up for a profit, I too was saddened.I know it the sellers prerogative on how he or she sellers their items.In my honest opinion I think the person is not a true collector.I wish I had the extra scratch.

[Dave]

I'm sure someone will attempt to pay out the nose to try to keep it together. Obviously, it's the seller's prerogative to split the group up, but unfortunately, you end up with medals like the WW1 Victory medal that comes with just a "story" and nothing else to prove it's attribution...so it just becomes a really really overvalued WW1 victory with no way to conclusively identify the recipient. Sad, but not a darn thing we can do about it. I'm sure plenty of people have contacted the seller to keep the group together (always happens in cases like this...)

[Oldmedalgi]

I did contact this seller and tried to convince them to sell it as a group. They responded that they expected to make more money by selling as they are, and that's all they care about. Sad!

[Rakkasan187]

It's a greedy world that we live in...

 

Leigh

[BROBS]

I'm sure someone will attempt to pay out the nose to try to keep it together. Obviously, it's the seller's prerogative to split the group up, but unfortunately, you end up with medals like the WW1 Victory medal that comes with just a "story" and nothing else to prove it's attribution...so it just becomes a really really overvalued WW1 victory with no way to conclusively identify the recipient. Sad, but not a darn thing we can do about it. I'm sure plenty of people have contacted the seller to keep the group together (always happens in cases like this...)

exactly...

 

What person further down the line is going to believe that story on a plain Victory Medal?

I know I wouldn't.

 

-Brian

[Adam R]

Just for fun I’m going to play devil’s advocate and take this thread in a different direction. We know for sure that the Sampson Medal belonged to Admiral Elliot because it’s named to him, but do we really know that the other medals belonged to him? They’re obviously original medals and look like they could be part of his group. But the seller hasn’t presented any documentation that they were actually issued to Admiral Elliot. And by the seller’s own admission, he’s just looking to maximize his profit on the sale. So there’s the possibility that he added the other medals to make a “group”. (We all know that less ethical dealers have been creating “groups” for years.)

 

Another possibility is that the medals belonged to another family member or family friend and they got intermingled over the years. I’ve encountered this type of scenario several times in the past. A few years ago I bought a large “grouping” of numbered Army campaign medals that included some duplicates. When I checked the numbers on the rolls it turned out that they were the medals of three different officers. A bit more research revealed that one of the officers had married the widow of one of the other officers. That explained how their medals got mixed together. I’ve never been able to figure out how the third officer (literally) came into the mix.

 

Another situation that comes to mind is a “group” of Navy medals on eBay that were sold off separately by the same seller several years ago. It had all the signs of being a group; similar musty, worn ribbons, the seller didn’t have any other militaria for sale, etc. There was a named Sampson Medal and an Imperial Order of the Dragon that was numbered. The number traced out to the same person named on the Sampson (another good sign). There were also three numbered campaign medals. When the bidding was over I had won the West Indies and the Philippine campaign medals and someone else won the IOD, Sampson and the China campaign medal. I used the name from the Sampson and IOD attribution and pulled the file for that sailor in St. Louis. When I examined the file I found that he was indeed issued the Sampson Medal but the records showed that the three campaign medals he was issued had numbers that did not match the three that were sold on eBay. I can only guess that he lost his originals and bought the other three “second hand” to replace them. I was never able to identify the actual original recipient of the two medals I had and eventually sold them for what they were; two numbered but unattributed campaign medals.

 

 

So how big a leap of faith are you willing to take in your bidding that these medals will all check out as belonging to Admiral Elliot?

 

 

[Dave]

Adam...wait a second, are you saying we have an unethical seller with 100% positive feedback?

 

MAY IT NEVER BE!

 

>

 

:D

[JDK]

Man.....what a shame! I've played the "Try and keep it together game" and it rarely works out. Although I truly hope it does here!

 

JD

[aerialbridge]

Adam...wait a second, are you saying we have an unethical seller with 100% positive feedback?

 

MAY IT NEVER BE!

 

<<gasp!>>

 

:D

 

That was seriously good. What if we selected our physicians or surgeons on a similar feedback system. Ouch.

[squidres]

Man who stole military medals, returned fakes gets 6-year term

January 23, 1996|By Amy L. Miller | Amy L. Miller,SUN STAFF

A former Carroll County budget analyst who admitted exchanging the military medals of eight Maryland veterans for fakes was sentenced yesterday to six years in jail by a Carroll County Circuit judge.

 

In each case, Stephen Van Rensselaer Pyne of Westminster told the Carroll and Anne Arundel county veterans or their families that he would refurbish and frame the medals.

 

The victims received replacement medals from Pyne, who also took the certificates of authenticity for the medals.

 

Pyne pleaded guilty to five counts of theft in Carroll County on Nov. 20. On Dec. 11, he pleaded guilty to three counts of theft in Anne Arundel County.

 

"Mr. Pyne harmed the people who were heroes to him," his attorney, David B. Weisgerber, said in Carroll County Circuit Court yesterday. "In a strange irony, he gave these people more press coverage for their acts of heroism. He gave them one last hurrah."

 

The medals, he said, were stolen and sold to help pay for improvements to Pyne's Westminster townhouse. In the past, Pyne also stole items when he was short of money, Mr. Weisgerber said.

 

For instance, Pyne stole his father's collection of stamps and $800 from a cash register at the Leggett's department store in Westminster, where he worked to earn college tuition.

 

Pyne was given probation before judgment in each of those cases, Mr. Weisgerber said. It wasn't clear yesterday whether Pyne had, in fact, met the terms of probation in those cases.

 

"He was financially strapped," Mr. Weisgerber said of Pyne, who earned $31,629 a year as a county budget analyst.

 

"The medal is just a token, not much different than this quarter in my hand," Mr. Weisgerber said. "He sold those medals to other collectors, but nothing changes the military records of the victims."

 

Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. disagreed.

 

"I see many, many theft cases in this court, but the difference here is quite obvious," Judge Burns said, noting that all the victims were elderly. The victims "obviously placed a great deal of trust in [Pyne], and he took advantage of that. To me, that's the real crime in this case."

 

In four of the cases, Judge Burns sentenced Pyne to consecutive 10-year prison terms, suspending all but 18 months in each case. In the fifth case, Judge Burns gave Pyne a concurrent 10-year sentence, which was suspended.

 

Mr. Weisgerber said Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. has agreed to give Pyne a term concurrent with Judge Burns' in the Anne Arundel County sentencing Feb. 2.

 

"I'm glad he got what he deserved," said William J. McKenzie, who received 11 decorations for acts such as stopping a rocket-launcher team during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

 

"That one attorney passed it off like another piece of metal," Mr. McKenzie said. "Those ones in the case just look like pieces of junk."

 

Other victims in Carroll were Mary E. Batten, who lost a Navy Cross and 17 other medals awarded to her deceased husband, Capt. Hugh N. Batten; and Earl D. Leppo, who lost his Silver Star and 11 other medals.

 

Pyne also admitted stealing seven medals from Julie Ann Lockard that were awarded to her deceased father, Clarence Edward Lockard, and a Distinguished Service Cross and 11 other decorations from Joseph Wasco Jr.

 

 

BREAKING UP A GROUP IS BAD, BUT WHAT THIS INDIVIDUAL DID DAMAGED ALL OF US

[BROBS]

??????

[squidres]

I posted this article since folks talk about how terrible it is that groups are being broken up....which is true....thought it would be useful to share this story since many of the MOH groups on the market in the 90s were stolen, which makes the breaking up of these groups even more atrocious.

 

Also as a side note, it is concerning that many people never heard of Stephen Pyne (who is back selling medals by the way).....he virtually destroyed our hobby back in the 90s, and much of the stolen valor act, the distrust of collectors among vets, and pain for a number of heros can be traced to his absolutely despicable act to everyone from General Goodpaster to families of deceased Navy Cross recipients.

[BROBS]

ahh OK I understand now.

 

I guess there are people out there who should have nothing to do with collecting.

 

Where is Pyne selling medals?? ebay?

 

-Brian

[trenchbuff]

Sure hope I'm wrong but I believe the writing is on the wall that at some point in the future we will not be able to own ANY valor awards and the medal collecting hobby will be dead. We have too many shrill voices pointing to the misdeeds of a few thieves and unethical people as a call for more laws and regulations. In my old fashioned brain I would rather deal with the thieves and crooks as they come along rather than impose more laws and regulations that destroy everyone's rights. Just a thought.

[squidres]

He is selling and ebay and I have heard he has been selling on the forum, but I have not personally dealt with him. We need to get the story out there about his actions for the new generation of collectors, plenty of info readily available on google. I personally heard some of the stories from the people he hurt...it is heart breaking

[firefighter]

Has OMSA or ASMIC ever mentioned him.I would think those two groups are the best way to reach collectors, well besides this group.

[Dave]

Wow...this thread has sure been hijacked. Lets try to keep it on the original topic. If you'd like to discuss Mr Pyne, there are several members of the forum who had run ins with him back in the 90s and are more familiar with his case (even though it is very, very old news...) Feel free to start a separate thread to discuss him if you'd like.

 

Thanks