Purple Heart Medal privately engraved or official government engraving?

[WEAVER45]

Is this Purple Heart medal privately engraved or official government engraving? 

 

Can anyone  post  an engraving style that looks similar  to this one?

[WEAVER45]

another photo

[TGAZ]

Are there known instances of official government engraving using lower case? Flipped through all my reference books and did not see one, all upper case.

[KASTAUFFER]

There is actually a specific instance of this kind of engraving being used. I have mostly seen it on POW related medals.

 

Kurt

[TGAZ]

8 hours ago, KASTAUFFER said:

There is actually a specific instance of this kind of engraving being used. I have mostly seen it on POW related medals.

 

Kurt

 

Hi Kurt. Could share info about these lower case PH? I am very much interested to add to my library of knowledge.

 

I've been going down the rabbit hole of studying and learning about the known engraving styles on US medals as they are the same engravers for all the medals. As such I've tried to get my hands on as much literature as possible, though I do not claim to be an expert at all in this field, nor do I have all the reference material available on this topic. Going through several decades of material from giants like Nier and Gleim along with past JOMSA publications outlining the known engraving styles... I can't find reference to POW medals using lower case or that lower case font was used, I also thought that Upper Case font was how they had to be due to the manufacturing specifications calling for the font to be Upper Case. I've spent some time trying to find a Purple Heart POW example on Google in lower case font but also came up empty.

 

 

 

[dhcoleterracina]

TGAZ,  the book you haven't mentioned is the one written by our member/moderator here...Dave.  It has hundreds of pictures of engraving styles and certainly worth your money. 

[KASTAUFFER]

I have seen a number of these, I took a picture of this one that’s part of a large group that I own and you can see the engraving is the same.I have seen a number of these, I took a picture of this one that’s part of a large group that I own and you can see the engraving is the same. He was a POW.

[Allan H.]

ARMY SERIAL NUMBER3375055433750554

NAMEGOMERSALL#RICHARD#H#####GOMERSALL#RICHARD#H#####

RESIDENCE: STATE34DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

RESIDENCE: COUNTY001DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

PLACE OF ENLISTMENT3347FT MYER VIRGINIA

DATE OF ENLISTMENT DAY1616

DATE OF ENLISTMENT MONTH1111

DATE OF ENLISTMENT YEAR4343

GRADE: ALPHA DESIGNATIONPVT#Private

GRADE: CODE8Private

BRANCH: ALPHA DESIGNATIONNO#No branch assignment

BRANCH: CODE02No branch assignment

FIELD USE AS DESIRED##

TERM OF ENLISTMENT5Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law

LONGEVITY######

SOURCE OF ARMY PERSONNEL0Civil Life

NATIVITY32PENNSYLVANIA

YEAR OF BIRTH1616

RACE AND CITIZENSHIP1White, citizen

EDUCATION84 years of college

CIVILIAN OCCUPATION048Draftsmen

MARITAL STATUS6Single, without dependents

COMPONENT OF THE ARMY7Selectees (Enlisted Men)

CARD NUMBER##

BOX NUMBER07030703

FILM REEL NUMBER1.2201.220

[Allan H.]

I could not find much at all on Richard Gomersall. He doesn't show up as a POW, and there are not any award cards that I could find on the NARA site.

 

Allan

[TGAZ]

21 hours ago, dhcoleterracina said:

TGAZ,  the book you haven't mentioned is the one written by our member/moderator here...Dave.  It has hundreds of pictures of engraving styles and certainly worth your money. 

 

What is the book name and author name you reference? 

[WEAVER45]

On ancestry.com you can find that he was wounded in the hospital medical records file. This was a week ago when I looked at it but looks like he was WIA February 1945. I did not see that he was a POW

[WEAVER45]

This is a great book for world war 2 engraving styles. Dave did a great job writing the book. I would highly recommend it.  https://www.amazon.com/Sacrifice-Remembered-Posthumous-Awards-Purple/dp/0979284910/ref=asc_df_0979284910/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=552882832481&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9020164211854495825&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9051903&hvtargid=pla-1460903967012&psc=1

[TGAZ]

16 hours ago, KASTAUFFER said:

I have seen a number of these, I took a picture of this one that’s part of a large group that I own and you can see the engraving is the same.I have seen a number of these, I took a picture of this one that’s part of a large group that I own and you can see the engraving is the same. He was a POW.

 

Is there any example of an Air Medal, PH, or DFC in lower case font, printed in a magazine, journal or book, or mentioned before the 2005? 

 

There are a couple of reference books/magazine/material for the DFC and PH I don't have yet, but for the ones I have, I'd expect the lower case font Purple Heart to have been been mentioned in them, as there's been lots of studies on engraving styles over the decades. After reading all I can find the last 4 months on WWII PH/SS engraving styles (which should be the same for the DFC, AM and others...), this is coming out of left field for me. (sorry, if there's a bunch of info on this and I haven't read it yet, I apologize, I'm really trying to get my hands on more info).

 

 

[TGAZ]

32 minutes ago, WEAVER45 said:

This is a great book for world war 2 engraving styles. Dave did a great job writing the book. I would highly recommend it.  https://www.amazon.com/Sacrifice-Remembered-Posthumous-Awards-Purple/dp/0979284910/ref=asc_df_0979284910/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=552882832481&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9020164211854495825&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9051903&hvtargid=pla-1460903967012&psc=1

 

Just ordered it. It was on my list and I completely forgot about it... thnx

[KASTAUFFER]

I have 2 more Air Medals, a DFC , and a Purple Heart engraved in this manner.  2 of them came straight from the daughter,   Here are 2 threads with more examples.  This engraving was discussed at length in the 2nd link. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KASTAUFFER]

Here are three engraving styles represented in 1 group to a POW. It was Frank Smith and I that wrote the first article/study classifying WWII Official US Army Purple Heart engraving styles in the OMSA journal in 1995.

 

[WEAVER45]

After doing some research GOMERSALL served in the 87th Inf.  Div.  347th Inf Reg. co F during WWII.  He was WIA 2-9-1945 and never returned to combat.  Thank You  all for your feedback on this.