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My Spoof Medal: Asiatic Fleet Medal


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Posting a newly acquired United States Asiatic Fleet Medal in bronze. This one crossed my path and had to pick it up. What I like about this example is it retains the orginal ribbon...which has a Soochow Creek like ribbon weave. All the examples I have seen were for organized Fleet sports events. I believe these medals were made by "The Special Dragon Works" a jewelry company in Shanghai. This is based upon advertisements they ran in issues of "The Orient" magazine in the 1920's. If they were the sole manufacturer of these from the medal's creation through the 1930's I can not yet say. But in the 20's they made a point of adverting that they did produce/carry them. I remember reading these have been produced as early as the late 1910's and into the late 1930's. But don't have my reference material in front of me....anyway spoof medal collectors enjoy....and post your examples if you have them.

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That is quite cool. I love these regionally-made decorations. The pendant looks quite nice with the detail of the ships.

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Thanks guys!

 

@ Bob I think we have seen these before on the site as a part of groupings. GBH had one on ebay a while ago that went for the price of a good Soochow

 

@ Darrell....ebay find.....I think I have pushed my luck these past two months with finds....plus a nice tip from Tim brought home a excellent 1937 Soochow creek album

 

@ Rally looking at it now under a loupe...and your right the detail is better then I would have expected for a local made item.

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Dirk that is a wonderful Asiatic Fleet Medal. I have only ever seen a very few of them, the last one was on Ebay and sold for quite a bit. Thanks for sharing.

Dick

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Dirk, nice to see this medal after hearing about it. I have always been a fan of spoof medals, and this one is as killer as all the other China ones out there!

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Thanks guys! These spoofs are all interesting to me.....I recently found another one that has not been seen by me yet from a local Chinese printed publication. One wonders how many different types there are out there.

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Thanks Darrell! I will keep looking....after all gathering all those period publications and documents has to have a reward somewhere!

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  • 2 years later...

I have several of these medals in my collection, including one for soccer and two for rowing. I always assumed that they were purely unofficial but recently I found reference to the medal in the recipient's USN service record. This seems to imply that it was more than just a "spoof medal" and was at least a semiofficial award of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet.

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