Do Your Research…and I do mean it!

I’ve always said as a collector of anything that the time and effort you put into research will pay dividends. However there is the odd occasion where you can be caught out by misinformation especially on the internet. Now I’m not going to name names and all that but recently I saw a Medal of Honor for sale (in the UK) and realised that the vendor had made a mistake with the name of the manufacturer. I contacted a company in the USA that makes insignia and medals and they confirmed to me that they had never manufactured the Medal of Honor. Fine so far but I then happened upon an article that said the MoH was made from Gold @ 2.5 ounces. So armed with this information I passed this onto the vendor who thanked me for this and published this information as part of the selling point. The vendor pointed out that the value of the MoH would be £2000+ ($2648+) which seemed high to me as HLP were selling their MOH’s out the back door in 1995 at $75 a piece.  Much to my disbelief it seemed I’d made an monumental error in my research and I apologised profusely after more research to prove my mistake as I didn’t want to appear to have mislead the vendor on any information I may of supplied. Thankfully the vendor was okay with this and used the correct information I had supplied to add to his advert.

Now I’m very sensitive to criticism and my “Chimp” started to beat the crap out of me for making what appeared to be a stupid mistake on my part. On reflection though I realised that this wasn’t my fault but I should have checked further before passing on any information. Lesson learned! That is why we need to take our time when researching every avenue of information and question anything you feel may have a bearing on your investigations. I must admit it did make me feel a bit down hearted as I felt somewhat stupid about the whole saga but time and collecting moves on, so onto the next piece of research and information especially the Purple Heart as that’s my next page to add to my blog.

Onward and Upward folks and Happy 4th of July.

Author: James Findon

Hi I'm James Findon I live in Warwickshire, UK and my main employment is as a Maintenance Supervisor for a Global Real Estate Company. I have previously worked for the civil service on a United States Air Force Base in the UK and this developed my keen interest in American Military Awards and military history. I regularly contribute articles to military forums on the internet especially US Awards and equipment. I have visited some of Europe's battlefields and US Cemeteries including Normandy and Bastogne. I hope you'll enjoy reading my Blog as I've a passion for all thing US Military and for my sins I'm now an American Football convert, Green Bay being my team. Enjoy! View all posts by James Findon