Military Chat

Just on the back of another thread re the Seaforth Highlanders I googled my Gt gt uncles name. I knew he had been in the Seaforths and I had found what I thought was all the info on where he served etc, but one entry came up saying he had been entitled to the Relief of Chitral medal, the second entry was for an auction site...last year his medals went to auction.

Four: Private J. Whetman, Seaforth Highlanders

India General Service 1895-1902, 1 clasp, Relief of Chitral 1895 (4035 Pte., 2d Bn. Seaforth ...); Queen’s Sudan 1896-98 (4035 Pte., 1/Sea. H...); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (4035 Pte., 2 Sea. Highrs.); Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, 2 clasps, The Atbara, Khartoum (4035 Pte., 1s Sea. Highrs.) edge bruising, contact marks, good fine and better (4) £380-420

That's a good find Rose - would you have been tempted to bid if you'd known at the time?

Probably not +++DetEcTive+++ a bit out of my reach money wise, but I might have been tempted to send a copy of the photo of him in uniform and a bit of his history so that whoever bought the medals 'knew' him a little more. I do have his collar badge :-)

You're so luck to have a bit of 'history' to hold on to. Lets hope your own descendent does discard the badge when its time for you to hand over the reins.

What makes me sad is how they've passed out of the family. May be that's because the owner needed the money the medals raised, possibly because no one 'cared' enough to keep them. Its always possible the last owner, assuming related, didn't have anyone to pass them on to. :-0

I'm hoping that either Dan or my niece or nephew will be interested enough to hold on to stuff.

It may be that his descendant needed the money or thought someone else would value them more, which is fair enough, or maybe the medals had already left the family.

probably had already left the family ...

I had a similar find a few years ago, on a random google (learned that the names are usually in initial form like yours, e.g. J B Smith)

Unfortunately what I found was an auction ended some time before, too, and in that case no price estimate given ... probably less than your man's medals but still pricey.

I did write to the auction house asking to be put in touch with the buyer if possible, but the buyer never responded ... I would have liked just a photo even, and yes could have passed on all sorts of interesting tales to go with the medals.

The auction house did advise that the seller was not a member of the family.

Not all collectors are interested in the human history, I guess.

I suspect that a lot of these buyers of medals at auction are dealers in second-hand medals and are simply looking to make a profit.

To them, family history, unless it's a VC or similar, is quite irrelevant.