Nelson & His World

I thought attention should be brought to this which I saw this morning, not only because of what it is, but because of who was awarded it:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... escription

Although the seller can of course dispose of it where he likes, it would be a very great shame if, through the medium of Ebay it leaves Great Britain.
I was pleased to see that Faith Carpenter of the Norfolk Nelson Museum intends to bid for it. I hope she succeeds, since to my mind there is no better place for it, and where it can be viewed by interested visitors, rather than being acquired by some private collector.

Wow, what a find. Yes, it would be tragic thing for this piece of history to end up in private hands. Let's hope that the winning bidder is a patron of the National Maritime Museum, or the Royal Naval Museum.

It does belong on display. In England!

The Norfolk Nelson Museum had hoped to be able to bid for the medal with the support of one of our patrons, but this time we are not unable to do so. The museum has no purchase budget so cannot purchase items for the collection without the support of patrons. We contacted the Heritage Lottery Fund, who were unable to help because their fast-track application form takes 6 weeks, not 6 days.

Maybe the buyer will donate the medal to the museum? It would be meaningful for us because, of course, Sharman was the keeper of the Monument in GY which the museum now leads tours of.

Is there no possibility, even at this late stage, that the National Maritime Museum could help here? I did contact them by e-mail, when I first heard of the medal sale.

If nothing can now be done, it would be great if the eventual purchaser would see fit to put the medal on display in the Norfolk Nelson Museum for it to be seen by all, since your museum has the best claim to it. The worst scenario would be if the medal actually left the country.

Kester

It would now seem that the medal has gone to its new owner, whoever he or she may be. A return e-mail from the NMM said that they were not especially interested, since they had twenty others, and they agreed that the Norfolk Nelson Museum would have been the best place for it.

We can only hope the new owner thinks so too!

Just to add a little more it now seems as though the auction of the medal was called off by Ebay, after a bogus bid was detected:

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/sto ... 3A06%3A187

Seems as though there might be hope yet.

Kester