The Beginning

It all started in 1999 when I was chatting to a collector who had mentioned he had some medals stolen at a medal and military fair valued around £2000.

This took me on a path for several years hearing stories of collectors having medals stolen through burglaries, at medal fairs and even stories from medal dealers who had sent medals through the post and ended with the medals being stolen. Over a period of several years I had heard a lot of stories detailing a large variety of different medals, mainly war medals.

I thought back to when I lived in Tottenham, I remembered a burglary at the Middlesex Museum in 1977 in which some three hundred medals were stolen, many of which are still at large today. I heard of other burglaries at museums incorporating large amounts of medals stolen. This became evident not only in the UK but also in other countries around the world. With all these stories of medals being stolen I could not find any requester/list detailing medals that had been stolen to help and give guidance to collectors, dealers, Auction Houses and other dealers in military and general items as to what is not advisable to buy.

For the next three years I thought what to call the site, planned what to show and how to provide the information. I asked collectors and Police what info would be most helpful to any person who comes into contact with a stolen medal. The answers were pretty obvious – Recipient name to medal, Service number if available and a Police crime reference to confirm the medal was missing.

By 2013 the website was up and going and within a year I had nearly 300 medals listed. To achieve my aim, it came at a cost – a very large cost. Over a period of ten years I had sold my entire collection of medals to fund my ambition. Well, the satisfaction of being able to help a fellow collector or member of the public or a Museum is rewarding.

Kevin Mann, January 2019