Military collectors prove their medal
Tue, May 4, 2004
By EARL McRAE, Ottawa Sun
"It made me want to cry," says Andrew Driega, remembering. "It was terrible." He shakes his head morosely. "He came in and said they didn't want any vultures profiting off the death of soldiers. I wanted to say 'You don't understand, buddy, you don't get it -- the ones who'd have bought them are serious collectors and they'd have kept them, protected them, and cherished them.' "
And then, wryly: "If they hadn't destroyed them, they probably could have paid off the debt and saved their legion."
Andrew Driega, 40, is sitting at a desk behind a long glass showcase in his shop on Richmond Rd. It's called Ashbrook Coins, Stamps, Antiques, and Collectibles. He buys and he sells.
The Royal Canadian Legion branch was in the Ottawa Valley. Behind glass on one of its walls were countless sterling silver crosses -- the Canadian Memorial Cross -- awarded to the mothers or next of kin of Canada's soldiers killed in war. The many crosses had been donated down through the years to this particular legion branch for proud display. The branch hit hard times, and went bankrupt.
"He had them all in a bag," says Driega. "Someone with the legion had deliberately taken a hammer to them and destroyed them beyond recognition. They were all mangled. He wanted to sell them to me for the value of the junk silver content. They weren't crosses anymore. I gave him about $2 for each of them. Had they not been destroyed, he'd have got about $100 for each of them."
People come into Driega's shop every day selling and buying military medals that once decorated the uniforms of soldiers who served in war, some of those soldiers having been members of the very families selling them and, in extremely rare cases, veterans themselves have come in with medals to sell they'd once so honourably earned.
Driega is required by law -- "In case the police learn they'd been stolen" -- to immediately report all of his purchases to the police and to hold the medals for a month before officially releasing them to buyers.
It hasn't happened often, says Driega, but he has purchased, and sold, service medals brought in by current Canadian soldiers, those who've served in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, the Gulf.
'A QUICK 100 BUCKS'
"I guess they think it's a good way for them to make a quick 100 bucks," says Driega. "Especially when they know the military, just one time, allows them a replacement medal for free. But, since they report to the military that their medal was lost or stolen, they have to be careful they don't get discovered."
Driega picks up his medals catalogue.
"Everything I sell walks through the door. There's so much demand for medals, it's insane, especially those from World War I and earlier. There are a lot of collectors of militaria out there. They're sold literally within hours of me buying them, especially the high-end ones, the ones for bravery in combat."
These would include the Military Medal, the Military Cross, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross. Driega, in his more than two decades of business, has had them all brought in off the street to be sold to him, his resale price ranging from $3,500 (DCM, DSM) to $500 (MM, World War I).
He has never had anyone come selling the world's most prestigious military medal of them all for valour -- the Victoria Cross. "That one," he says, checking in his catalogue, "goes for a minimum $100,000." He smiles. "Some I will entertain price negotiations, others I won't."
Other medals he sells are regular campaign and service medals, such as that before him on his desk, the Afghanistan Medal, from the second Afghan war of 1878-1880 that he bought for $300 from a descendant of a British soldier in that theatre, and will likely sell for $450.
But what kind of person is it, I ask, who'd want to get rid of such treasured symbols of deserved glory; does it not bespeak extreme financial hardship on the part of the seller, or cold, callous, insensitivity, regardless of some so-called "need" for money?
NO 'ATTACHMENT'
"It's almost always someone who has been left them, or, say, found them in a box," says Driega. "Sometimes someone of this generation, a family member of the recipient but who has no emotional attachment to them, no connection, and they don't know what to do with them, but don't want to throw them away."
I tell Driega that I, personally, could never, no matter the circumstances, sell military medals earned by anyone in my family, no matter how far back.
"I couldn't either," he says.
