President's Message

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dear Fellow OMSA (United States, British, International) are truly fabulous Members: and a great way to learn about our hobby. You won’t find these seminars anywhere else. Fourth, the camaraderie is Our Convention in infectious, ask anyone who attended the Thursday night Irvine. Our 55th Annual OMSA auction or the Saturday banquet. These are just Convention in Irvine plain fun events. Fifth and finally, you should attend to was a huge success. The support your Society. If the convention is to survive, then venue was superb and the OMSA members must attend. I’m not saying you need weather was excellent, an to come every year, but you should plan on attending on added bonus. Convention a regular basis. Bottom line: if you have not attended an co-chairs Adam Rohloff OMSA convention, then come to Atlanta. If you have and Nathan Weiss put attended in the past, come again on a regular basis. We on a virtually flawless look forward to seeing you. event. While there will be a lengthy article about the convention, I do want to Fifty-Year Members. Congratulations to our recent highlight the fact that Director Peter Lomdahl, exhibiting recipients of a “Fifty-Year Member” bar: Douglas M. for the first time, won a Gold Medal and “Best of Show.” Boyce, Adin Capron, William K. Emerson, Ernest J. Needless to say, Peter will be hard pressed to do better Fisher II, Peter Hlinka, Kenneth G. Hope, Robert J. in the future. Martin, Thomas O. Moffat, and Carl H. Sciortino. Doug Boyce, E.J. Fisher and Ken Hope were present at the Atlanta 2015. Plan to attend the August 6-9, 2015 event convention and received their bars in a public ceremony! in Atlanta. We will be at the Crowne Plaza Revinia. Our Treasurer, Tim Bartholow, is the man on-the-ground for Dues. Invoices for 2015 have been sent. Please send your this convention. He will be assisted by Director Nathan renewal to the Secretary now! Weiss. Changes of Address. To ensure uninterrupted delivery Why You Should Come to the OMSA Convention. On of your Journal, changes of address must be received by more than one occasion, I have heard a fellow member the Secretary prior to the first day of the month of issue, say: “I don’t need to come to the convention because I i.e. November 1st for the November-December issue. can buy medals for my collection on eBay or find them on a dealer’s website.” While the statement about eBay More Medals of Honor. For those of you who have and dealer websites arguably is true, I’ll explain shortly not kept up with the news, there are two more Medal of why that may not be accurate after all. In any event, Honor awardees: Command Sergeant Major (Ret) Bennie there are at least five reasons to attend our yearly get Adkins (living recipient) and Specialist Four Donald Sloat togethers. First, you will meet other OMSA members (posthumous). Both recipients were honored for their with your collecting interests and can share information extraordinary heroism during the Vietnam War. Adkins, (and perhaps medals) with them. This will only enhance now 80 years old and a retired Army command sergeant your collecting efforts. Second, the number of non-dealer major, was awarded the decoration for his courage and members selling medals at the bourse continues to grow, tenacity during a four-day battle and escape in March with an amazing amount of material being offered that 1966. Then 20-year-old Sloat died in January 1970 in you will never see on any website. Some of our members the Khe Sanh Valley, using his own body as a shield to only sell at the convention, so if you don’t attend, you save fellow soldiers from a grenade. The two Medals of will not see this material. I know for a fact that one of our Honor were presented by President Obama in a White members was looking for a named Royal Air Force group House ceremony on September 15, 2014. containing an Air Crew Europe Star, which he found in Irvine. Needless to say, this member was over-the-moon Please do not hesitate to contact me by email (or phone) with this find, especially when a little bit of research if you have any questions or concerns. revealed that the recipient of the group had been killed in action in an air raid over the island of Malta during Best to all, Fred World War II. Had this member not come to Irvine, he would not have found these medals. Third, the seminars 2 JOMSA MEET THE AUTHORS Frank Draskovic has been a coin collector since foreign colleagues. Ralph currently lives and works in 1949 and a professional numismatist specializing in the Washington, D.C. region. world coins 1500-1950 since 1963. He acquired his first order in 1967 and has collected them ever since. Gary Spencer lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his Frank is the co-author of two editions of the Standard wife, Kirsten, and two children, Vivian and Jackson. A Price Guide to World Crowns & Talers, the standard graduate of The Citadel, Class of 1996, he began his work used worldwide for silver dollar-size coins of the career as General Manager for Borders Books. Once world. He has been elected to the Numismatic Literary that company closed its doors, Gary finally fulfilled his Guild; is a world coin authenticator; a cataloger for dream, and joined the North Carolina Army National major numismatic auction firms; an ANA member for Guard in which he is currently serving as a Sergeant and 45 years; and an OMSA member for 26 years. Frank gunner on an M1A1 SA Abrams tank in Delta Company, has been President of the Southern California Orders & 1/252nd Armor, 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team. Medals Society since 1995. Full time, he works as a technician in G-1 at the North Carolina Joint Force Headquarters. Additionally, he is Ed Haynes joined OMSA in 1966 (illegally young, at 17, assisting the State Command Historian in the founding as the late Jack Lelle always remarked) and later became of the new North Carolina National Guard Museum a life member. A retired university professor of modern tentatively set to open to the public in the fall of 2015. South Asian history (Ph.D. from Duke University and He is also a member of the Board of Directors for M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University), he is now the Camp Butner Society Museum. Gary, a lifelong focused on catching up on decades of research postponed collector of United States militaria, is an ardent student due to heavy teaching loads, including articles for of military history. Growing up with his grandparents, JOMSA. In addition to academic publications, he has he was surrounded by history, from a portrait of his published some 40 articles in JOMSA since his first in ancestor who signed the Mecklenburg Declaration 1970, has been a seminar presenter, and exhibitor at of Independence and artifacts from his Confederate several of the conventions and has been awarded the lineage, to captured rifles, swords and flags from his Commendation Medal and the Literary Medal. He is the grandfather’s service as a Marine in World War II. His coauthor, with Rana Chhina, of Medals and Decorations primary collecting interests are United States medals, of Independent India (2008). He is now focusing on the and 30th Infantry Division items. forthcoming From Izzat to Honour: Changing Modes of Representing Honor in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Harry Waterson is a retired entertainment executive Century India and surveys of the awards of Pakistan who is active in medallic research. He recently published and other South Asian nations, as well as several a monograph entitled The Medal-Of-The-Month Club volumes on Arab awards. He suffers from a bad case Created by Felicity Buranelli with the help of a grant from of broad phaleristic interests. He was also the founder Central States Numismatic Society, this catalogue raisonné of the now defunct International Electronic Phaleristic won the bronze Mishler Exonumia Cataloging Award for Encyclopedia and today manages the online forum 2013 from the Token and Medal Society. He is a regular http://sagongs.ipbhost.com on South Asian medals. contributor to The Clarion, the tri-annual publication of the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists (PAN). He Ralph Pickard is a published author and has been an won a 2nd place PAN Literary Award for his article “The OMSA member for a number of years. He has authored Coinage of the Frasers” in 2012. He recently wrote an two books related to East Germany’s Ministry for State article for that journal called “The Great Horace Heist” Security (MfS) from the Cold War; STASI Decorations about Rudyard Kipling’s input into the medal issued to and Memorabilia Volume I (2007) and Volume II commemorate the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary in 1936. This article was republished by the Kipling Society (2012). He has written a number of articles associated in the June 2014 issue of the Kipling Journal. Waterson with medals and award documents presented to MfS has been a member of SOCALOMS since 2002 and he personnel. In addition to acquiring an extensive MfS greatly values his membership in that phaleristic body. collection, he has carefully studied an MfS history, from Waterson’s abiding interest is in cataloguing the known its origins and evolution through the end of the Cold works of the sculptor Julio Kilenyi. This has been a work- War and its demise.

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