TOPIC:

I have just bought a QSA to 254 Tpr C Mayer, Driscoll's Scouts, clasps OFS, TVL and SA 01 and 02.

Mayer is on the nominal roll , p63, with two dates of joining bracketed together I.e 24/5/01 and 30/11/01. Does this mean he served an initial six months and then signed up again? His discharge date is 30/6/02, which would be a seven month period.

I am also wondering why he had such a low number, when,according to the roll, men who had joined much earlier had higher numbers?

Finally, and I know answers are likely to be very subjective, how have members decided what to collect when it comes to QSA's? I've got ten so far, collected in a pretty ad hoc way-a mixture of collecting at least one example of each clasp ( costly ones still to come), a couple of others which seemed well priced, and a couple to units that appealed to me. I think I need to focus! I guess what I'm after are some principles, although impulse and emotion will always figure.

Thanks

Patrick

Good Morning Patrick......

Why collect QSA's..... Very long story but in short...... Back in the 1960's I used to collect anything and everything that I could lay my hands on..... I looked at my collection and decided that I needed a theme as I was not collecting in an organized way and if I wanted to put on a display I couldn't...... I took an old copy of BBM and put it on it's spine pulled my hand away and said I would collect whatever page it opened on and it opened on the QSA, also the very first medal that I ever purchased was a QSA/KSA pair..... I also looked for one of each type of reverse and each bar and unusual groups and bit by bit I got sucked into the full history of the war and the men who fought it ...... I do not regret it at any time....... The only regret is that some of the medals I sold from my old items (DSO & Bar, MC, WW1 Trio, German WW2 Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords) I would like to have back LOL......

Mike

pjac49 wrote: Finally, and I know answers are likely to be very subjective, how have members decided what to collect when it comes to QSA's? I've got ten so far, collected in a pretty ad hoc way-a mixture of collecting at least one example of each clasp ( costly ones still to come), a couple of others which seemed well priced, and a couple to units that appealed to me. I think I need to focus! I guess what I'm after are some principles, although impulse and emotion will always figure.

Thanks

Patrick

Hello Patrick,
Mike his delved into the second half of your post, so I shall look here at the first half, I would go with the dates in WO127 if I were you, they are normally correct, to be quite certain, I would look in WO126/40-43 at Kew for Charles Mayer's oringinal attestation and discharge papers, it is not complete, but, I would hope that they may have survived, it will be a very simple case of yes or no I'm afraid.
The medal rolls in WO100/245, sadly do not give us any more information.
Driscoll's Scouts was a class C unit in the SAMIF, it was under the direct control of the Assistant Adjutant General at Army Head Quarters, Pretoria, which was actually at Melrose House, they were raised in Aliwal North on the 17th of March 1900 and were disbanded in Bloemfontein on the 14th of July 1902, it had an initial organisation of five squadrons and the period of service within could be for as little as three months, a good unit, Daniel Driscoll ran a tight ship!
Anyway, happy new year, kind regards Frank Kelley

pjac49 wrote: I have just bought a QSA to 254 Tpr C Mayer, Driscoll's Scouts, clasps OFS, TVL and SA 01 and 02.

Mayer is on the nominal roll , p63, with two dates of joining bracketed together I.e 24/5/01 and 30/11/01. Does this mean he served an initial six months and then signed up again? His discharge date is 30/6/02, which would be a seven month period.

I am also wondering why he had such a low number, when,according to the roll, men who had joined much earlier had higher numbers?

Finally, and I know answers are likely to be very subjective, how have members decided what to collect when it comes to QSA's? I've got ten so far, collected in a pretty ad hoc way-a mixture of collecting at least one example of each clasp ( costly ones still to come), a couple of others which seemed well priced, and a couple to units that appealed to me. I think I need to focus! I guess what I'm after are some principles, although impulse and emotion will always figure.

Thanks

Patrick