Hours Of Searching And Still No Idea | Thailand Medal

On the reverse, there are three numbers are above the elephant: 1239, 1247 and 1249. If these are dates in the Chulasakarat calendar, then they could be references to times during the reign of Chulalongkorn (1877, 1885 and 1887). But I'm not sure exactly what.

My grandfather left me his coin collection and aside from U.S. coins there were pounds of random foreign coins that I'm still identifying.

Hi ozerman

It's a medallion to commemorate three separate actions against French incursions in an area called Parhp Haw (a phonetic rendering) - the wording before the dates on the reverse.

The area is in the north east bordering Laos, in Nong Khai district. Siam (as Thailand was then called) eventually ceded its lands north of the Mekong River to the French who then created French-Indo China. This defeat prompted King Chulalongkorn to modernise the army.

The translation is thanks to my wife who says that her father heard stories (and mentioned it to her) of these actions when he was in the army. He apparently did his service in the same area. This thread has piqued her interest so she's going to do some further digging.

There is a similar medallion on sale on a Thai site and it's $20. Yours would certainly be of interest to some older Thai soldiers. They will often encase them in a gold glass-fronted locket and wear them as a good luck charm.

Couldn't relocate the site mentioned in my original reply (it was in Thai but my wife is away for a few days) but have come across another one.
It's your medallion exactly but it's for $1,000! It is however wrongly described as a coin and as Rama VI. Because the seller is located in Bangkok one would have thought that the description would be more precise.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Coin-King-R...em336c8e3bf3

I'm not an expert on these so I really don't know if it is worth that much but if it was for sale in Thailand that's about 30,000 Baht, Whether anyone would pay that for it here I just don't know. I'd just wait and see how that particular auction plays out.

Definitely keeping my eye on this.

Hi ozerman,

I actually have the same medal that you have. Unfortunately the ones that we have are replicas. I have done my research on this for hours as well. The actual hubs and dies for this medal were sold at a heritage auction on January 8th, 2007 herefor $6037.50 USD. Click on the pics at the bottom of the heritage link for high resolution images. If you exam these hubs and dies, you will find that things are different on your medal than on the actual hubs/dies. For instance, look at the reins on the elephant, on the real die they extend past the elephant under his neck, yours do not. Also look at the saddle on the elephant, the one that you have has a diamond pattern while the original one has a shield/crest. Not sure what the replica price is for this, but the one that Thai-vic is talking about may or may not be a replica, I don't know. If I could sell mine for $20 I would be happy though.

Wow...some really great info Thai-Vic!