Royal Hero Sells Medal To Pay For Funeral

[The Mad Monk]

A man who saved Princess Anne when she was attacked has sold his George Medal to pay for his funeral.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-5173...

£50,000 it made, apparently.

[JuniorD]

The Mad Monk said:

A man who saved Princess Anne when she was attacked has sold his George Medal to pay for his funeral.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-5173...

£50,000 it made, apparently.

That will be some funeral!

[21TonyK]

I saw this and it made me a little sad. Guy sold it to make sure he can pay for his own funeral as he has health problems.

I would hope that anyone willing to splash £50K on a medal might do so with a generous spirit and let him hold on to it for a while longer.

[The Mad Monk]

21TonyK said:

I saw this and it made me a little sad. Guy sold it to make sure he can pay for his own funeral as he has health problems.

I would hope that anyone willing to splash £50K on a medal might do so with a generous spirit and let him hold on to it for a while longer.

What do you mean?

Buy it, but don't take delivery until after he has died?

[21TonyK]

The Mad Monk said:

21TonyK said:

I saw this and it made me a little sad. Guy sold it to make sure he can pay for his own funeral as he has health problems.

I would hope that anyone willing to splash £50K on a medal might do so with a generous spirit and let him hold on to it for a while longer.

What do you mean?

Buy it, but don't take delivery until after he has died?

In a nutshell. Let him hang on to it until he won;t miss it.

[Piha]

21TonyK said:

I saw this and it made me a little sad. Guy sold it to make sure he can pay for his own funeral as he has health problems.

I would hope that anyone willing to splash £50K on a medal might do so with a generous spirit and let him hold on to it for a while longer.

This would be the right thing to do.

[Reciprocating mass]

It wouldn’t hurt the royal family to sort this out imo
Bit of good publicity for them also

[JuniorD]

Think of the risk of buying a £50K historic car from someone and letting them keep it in their garage until they died.

Then think of the risk if that £50k car was the size of a coin.

I think I'd want it it my safekeeping the moment the money is transferred

[yellowjack]

The Mad Monk said:

A man who saved Princess Anne when she was attacked has sold his George Medal to pay for his funeral.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-5173...

£50,000 it made, apparently.

While it may sound sad, and I'm not sure if Ronnie Russell has any kids to leave such a thing to, a medal, or a set of medals, is hard to split in two when there is more than one beneficiary. So selling them (it) can be a way to pay off debts/bills/funeral costs and still have something over to leave to kids/grandkids.

I have a set of five pretty mundane medals, but they're worth (at most) a couple of thousand pounds as a set. Add in any kind of gallantry award and the value would shoot up. I've got two sons, and you can't really split the set equally between them. Nor would giving one of them a replica set work in financial terms. So I'd be better off selling them when the time comes, and splitting whatever they make between my boys.

Heck, if I had a set worth tens of thousands, I think i'd sell them now, buy a replica set to wear on Remembrance Sunday, and travel the world on the proceeds. The money isn't worth anything to me after I'm dead ,so better to have the benefit of it now. Although with mine, the cost of getting the replicas bought and mounted, and the low value of the real ones, doesn't really make it worthwhile to sell them.

[moles]

Wonder if she ever kept in correspondence with him after the event?, I’d like to think a Christmas card or something each year but probably not.

[steve2]

I see this from a different viewpoint, he can put the money for the funeral say £7k away either in a prepayment plan or premium bonds or other saving plans, then that leaves him £43k to have holidays or do things that he can enjoy whilst he can,.
No one can take away the fact that he was awarded the medal,

[Butter Face]

All that needs to happen is for Anne to give him the £50k, it’s not exactly big bucks for the royals and would reaffirm them as actual human beings

[yellowjack]

JuniorD said:

Think of the risk of buying a £50K historic car from someone and letting them keep it in their garage until they died.

Then think of the risk if that £50k car was the size of a coin.

I think I'd want it it my safekeeping the moment the money is transferred

This. Only the original medal has value as an object. The holder/seller could be bought a replica by the buyer, though. You are still regarded as holding an award even if the trinket that represents it is lost/stolen/sold. A medal is just a physical representation of the award. If Johnson Beharry (for example) sold you his Victoria Cross, it wouldn't make you a Victoria Cross holder. He's still the chap who'd be invited along to functions by the VC and GC Association, not the buyer. Trinkets can be bought and sold, but the honour which they represent dies with the holder of such awards.

[21TonyK]

Just how much would the medal actually be worth? Was the £50K a stratospheric price?

[Nath911t]

Reciprocating mass said:

It wouldn’t hurt the royal family to sort this out imo
Bit of good publicity for them also

I was thinking the same thing when I saw it on the news the other day. Not so much for the publicity but, who knows where she would have ended up or what the end result could have been.

[yellowjack]

21TonyK said:

Just how much would the medal actually be worth? Was the £50K a stratospheric price?

it sounds rather a lot. I've seen several estimates, some around £3,000 to £5,000, some up to £10,000. It's a 'Tier 2' gallantry award, so ought to be worth a few bob, and ultimately their rarity and desirability to collectors decides their value. This one was awarded for an incident involving Royalty directly, which might well influence it's desirability.

[greygoose]

He seemed a decent bloke and happy to tell his story on the local news the other night and apparently he has asked that he meets whoever the buyer is so he can relate the story to them of how he got it. It seems odd to me to buy someone else’s medals but obviously there is a demand out there.

[Fundoreen]

He was only in his mid 30s then .It must have been a mighty wallop.
Good idea to sell it for that amount and enjoy spending the money. If passed down to family it eventually would get put in a drawer then lost unless they decided to devote their lives to the worship of the medal.
Some photos of him wearing it would have more significance to future generations.

[The Mad Monk]

Butter Face said:

All that needs to happen is for Anne to give him the £50k, it’s not exactly big bucks for the royals and would reaffirm them as actual human beings

Que?

He has sold the medal.

He has got the £50k (or will have very soon).

You want him to have two lots of £50k?

[Derek Smith]

The value of the item to the chap was his actions when called on to respond to a life-threatening incident where his charge was at significant risk. The award was recognition of his actions by HM. While, if it was me, I'd not want to lose the medal, I don't think it would be all that important to me. Certainly not 50Ks worth. I reckon the decision was a good one.

Another way of looking at it is that the actions of a police officer were rewarded with 50K when he needed it. Result.