The second one is a "sweetheart brooch": made as a gift for wives, female relatives or girlfriends, and showing the insignia of the branch of the armed services in which the loved one served. A nice little example.
Curious. I know my nana served in the WAAF during WW2, but I don't know of anyone else in that branch of the service. That doesn't mean much though as my nana could have gotten it from someone else in her family (she had seven siblings) or it could even have been handed down. Do you know what era it's from? WW2 or sometime else?
The wheel and wing pin may relate to motorcycles. Does that fit in with your family?
Not that I know of, but again it doesn't mean there isn't. Just that I don't know a great deal about what most of my grandparents' siblings did.
The last one is obviously a Coronation Medal. Looking on google images there appear to be a large number of different styles produced, though my quick search has not found one exactly the same as this one.
Yes, I Googled all sorts of descriptions for it, but nothing was coming back that looked like it.
Yours is particularly nice as it has the original ribbon and is in good condiiton. (don't be tempted to overclean it though - it looks lovely just as it is).
Oh, cool. Thanks
Very nice items - you are lucky to have them.
Very lucky considered what happened to a lot of my grandparents' belongings. A lot of it was stored in the shed in the backyard, which we were assured by the workmen who put it up was waterproof. We went in the shed a couple of weeks ago (haven't really been in since my dad died several years ago) and had to throw 80% of the contents out as there was mould and rust covering everything. A large stack of black and white photographs that looked pre-war were all stuck together with mould and damp and the top one (what looked to be the crew of a navy ship) disintegrated when I tried to peel it off. Also had to hoy out my nana's box brownie camera, some old looking pocket tools, biscuit tins and a few books (one of them a 1930s edition of Warlord of Mars)
We did manage to save a small ornamental barrel which says it's made from the teak of the HMS Birmingham, it was full of pennies dating from the 1860s to 1950s, so obviously something handed down and added to over the decades. And there was a bunch of maps of France and Belgium that felt like they were made of cloth and covered in netting. One of them had Ordnance Survey 1918 printed on it and came with a photo pinpointing tactical positions. That must have been my great-grandfather's. He was a corporal in WW1 (had enlisted back in 1888). They were inside several layers of bags which seems to have mostly protected it. I just had to brush off minor mould.
This particular box with the insignias and medals in was in a covered box in the loft which I'd retrieved a few years ago but hadn't investigated properly until now. I'm thanking heavens they're okay. There's a lot in there. A Northumberland Fusiliers shoulder badge, RAF cap badge, some brass buttons, a 12th Royal Lancers collar badge, Comrades of the Great War pinbadge, Lusitania medallion and weirdly a German police officer's cap badge and 1942 Police Day donation pin (the swastika has been scratched off the former though). A few medals too, Defence medal and a few Stars (39-45, France & Germany and Africa with 8th Army clasp). They all look fairly decent.