War Medals for Sale

The Toronto Star Weekly

DECEMBER 8, 1923

What is the market price of valor? In a medal and coin shop on Adelaide street the clerk said: “No, we don’t buy them. There isn’t any demand.”

“Do many men come in to sell medals?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. They come in every day. But we don’t buy medals from this war.”

“What do they bring in?”

“Victory medals mostly, 1914 stars, a good many M.M.’s, and once in a while a D.C.M., or an M.C. We tell them to go over to the pawnshops where they can get their medal back if they get any money for it.”

So the reporter went up to Queen street and walked west past the glittering windows of cheap rings, junk shops, two-bit barber shops, secondhand clothing stores, and street hawkers, in search of the valor mart.

Inside the pawnshop it was the same story.

“No, we don’t buy them,” a young man with shiny hair said from behind a counter of unredeemed pledges. “There is no market for them at all. Oh, yes. They come in here with all sorts. Yes, M.C.’s. And I had a man in here the other day with a D.S.O. I send them over to the second-hand stores on York street. They buy anything.”

“What would you give me for an M.C.?” asked the reporter.

“I’m sorry, Mac. We can’t handle it.”

Out on to Queen street went the reporter, and into the first secondhand shop he encountered. On the window was a sign, “We Buy and Sell Everything.”

The opened door jangled a bell. A woman came in from the back of the shop. Around the counter were piled broken door bells, alarm clocks, rusty carpenters’ tools, old iron keys, kewpies, crap shooters’ dice, a broken guitar and other things.

“What do you want?” said the woman.

“Got any medals to sell?” the reporter asked.

“No. We don’t keep them things. What do you want to do? Sell me things?”

“Sure,” said the reporter. “What’ll you give me for an M.C.?”

“What’s that?” asked the woman, suspiciously, tucking her hands under her apron.

“It’s a medal,” said the reporter. “It’s a silver cross.”

“Real silver?” asked the woman.

“I guess so,” the reporter said.

“Don’t you know?” the woman said. “Ain’t you got it with you?”

“No,” answered the reporter.

“Well, you bring it in. If it’s real silver maybe I’ll make you a nice offer on it.” The woman smiled. “Say,” she said, “it ain’t one of them war medals, is it?”

“Sort of,” said the reporter.

“Don’t you bother with it, then. Them things are no good!”

In succession the reporter visited five more second-hand stores. None of them handled medals. No demand.

In one store the sign outside said, “We Buy and Sell Everything of Value. Highest Prices Paid.”

“What you want to sell?” snapped the bearded man back of the counter.

“Would you buy any war medals?” the reporter asked.

“Listen, maybe those medals were all right in the war. I ain’t saying they weren’t, you understand? But with me business is business. Why should I buy something I can’t sell?”

The merchant was being very gentle and explanatory.

“What will you give me for that watch?” asked the reporter.

The merchant examined it carefully, opened the case and looked in the works. Turned it over in his hand and listened to it.

“It’s got a good tick,” suggested the reporter.

“That watch now,” said the heavily bearded merchant judicially, laying it down on the counter. “That watch now, is worth maybe sixty cents.”

The reporter went on down York street. There was a second-hand shop every door or so now. The reporter got, in succession, a price on his coat, another offer of seventy cents on his watch, and a handsome offer of 40 cents for his cigarette case. But no one wanted to buy or sell medals.

“Every day they come in to sell those medals. You’re the first man ever ask me about buying them for years,” a junk dealer said.

Finally, in a dingy shop, the searcher found some medals for sale. The woman in charge brought them out from the cash till.

They were a 1914–15 star, a general service medal and a victory medal. All three were fresh and bright in the boxes they had arrived in. All bore the same name and number. They had belonged to a gunner in a Canadian battery.

The reporter examined them.

“How much are they?” he asked.

“I only sell the whole lot,” said the woman, defensively.

“What do you want for the lot?”

“Three dollars.”

The reporter continued to examine the medals. They represented the honor and recognition his King had bestowed on a certain Canadian. The name of the Canadian was on the rim of each medal.

“Don’t worry about those names, Mister,” the woman urged. “You could easy take off the names. Those would make you good medals.”

“I’m not sure these are what I’m looking for,” the reporter said.

“You won’t make no mistake if you buy those medals, Mister,” urged the woman, fingering them. “You couldn’t want no better medals than them.”

“No, I don’t think they’re what I want,” the reporter demurred.

“Well, you make me an offer on them.”

“No.”

“Just make me an offer. Make me any offer you feel like.”

“Not to-day.”

“Make me any kind of an offer. Those are good medals, mister. Look at them. Will you give me a dollar for all the lot?”

Outside the shop the reporter looked in the window. You could evidently sell a broken alarm-clock. But you couldn’t sell an M.C.

You could dispose of a second-hand mouth-organ. But there was no market for a D.C.M.

You could sell your old military puttees. But you couldn’t find a buyer for a 1914 Star.

So the market price of valor remained undetermined.