All in the Family - serial number and buying coincidences...

[Kirchgoens]

I do believe I'll start another new "General Talk" thread! This one will be about those serial number and buying coincidences that we sometimes encounter. For me, it sometimes takes the form of buying a few medals from one buyer on one day, only to find that I ended up with adjacent or near-adjacent numbers. It might also be that two pieces bought at the same time had similarities in how plastic covers were sewn on the suspensions or maybe nearly identical wear or patina. Maybe you got them from one dealer over time, and research showed them to match (Desantnik and I once had that happen with two ORS's; if it hadn't been for SND, we never would have known). Sometimes, it's the sneaking feeling that the BM and CSM you got from one dealer might actually be in a group to one person just because they came in one handful and sort of made sense.

I'll start this with a couple recent acquisitions, and add more as I dig through my stuff. Attached are two examples: one is of two CSM's from one dealer on the same day that had consecutive serial numbers. I didn't figure it out until I got home; what a pleasant surprise. The next one is of two late-issue OPW2's that are almost consecutive, and came from one dealer on the same day. I wonder what research will tell me about this pair? Catch-up awards that went to two neighbors who were inducted into the same unit, or maybe two awards to the same guy? I think it'll be the latter, but who knows until I order the research?