Medal Great Britain Queen's Medal 1899 to 1902

From Wikipedia: The Queen's South Africa Medal was instituted in 1900 for award to military personnel, civilian officials, and war correspondents who served in South Africa during the Second Boer War from 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902.

Three versions of the medal are known. Since the war was initially expected to be of short duration and to reach its conclusion in 1900, the first medals were struck with the years '1899' and '1900' on the reverse. Approximately fifty of these medals were awarded before it became evident that the war was to drag on much longer.
The rest of the dated medals that had already been minted, therefore, had these dates machined off (ghost dates). The third version was minted with an altered reverse and without the years.

Genuine medals are quite valuable, although there is a large variability to auction prices due, most likely, to personal ties to people in the War (see the edge of the medal for personalization). The price also changes with the number of clasps and the condition of the ribbon, if any. Very roughly:

GENUINE MEDALS
worn: $100 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $200
well preserved: $400
fully uncirculated: $800

King Edward medals are usually slightly less valuable than Queen Victoria medals.

Of course, with such high values there are many take-offs and replicas of these interesting medals. A few are shown in the tertiary picture, labelled 'Replicas.' These are generally smaller than genuine medals (genuine medals measure 36 mm diameter) and are often made of base metal, not silver. The replicas are back-dated, usually being manufactured in the late 1900s. Even so, replicas are somewhat in demand:

NICE-LOOKING REPLICA MEDALS
worn: $5 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $12
well preserved: $20
fully uncirculated: $35

As always on CoinQuest, the values on this page are catalog values. Actualy buy and sell values are usually lower. Read our Important Terminology page for an explanation of catalog values.
cqLastNotify