Token Talk with Duff Malkin
The weekend of the 23rd and 24th April was a weekend of the Kerrisdale Days. When I arrived I saw several booths outside of some of the banks and stores. Always looking for things numismatic, and even bank coupons will do, but not expecting anything, for Kerrisdale is not a great place to pick up tokens, I nevertheless looked for things and came across the Royal Canadian Legion booth. One also always looks at anything RCL because there are a few people interested in the military aspect of things.
Thereon was a small plastic bag with what appeared to be some round aluminum items in it – very few in number – maybe about 20. I thus had to ask a person there what they were and he said that they were coins and he then gave me one. Such was the small quantity of them that a) I did not feel like asking for more, b) it seems in order to get them one had to ask about them and c) it might have been hard then to get more, even if one had asked.
Having got mine, I then phoned another Kerrisdale numismatist to advise him of the issue and went into All Nations to advise Brian Grant Duff, before e-mailing a few people with illustrations – great things these i-Phones!!
The British Columbia/Yukon Legion website does not mention anything about the medal and it may be that the only mention of it might come through the annual reports of their Treasurer and it is not mentioned in their Legion Catalogue. The numismatic authorities in Victoria might know who minted the item, but it seems that the head office of the BC group is in Surrey.
The Legion logo design seen on the item was filed for trademark registration with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office on March 23rd, 2013. It was registered on September 16th, 2015. A Declaration of Use was filed for on that day. These dates could give some idea as to when the item was minted.
According to the Legion Magazine of May 7th, 2013, the new design was approved by the Dominion Executive Council at their February 23rd – 24th meeting in Kanata, Ontario Legion House. The article states that the design was shown, along with another one, to the executive to choose but does not say who designed it, by how many votes it won by, or when the notion of changing the logo was first proposed.
The registrant was the Royal Canadian Legion, Dominion Command, 86 Aird Place, Ottawa, Ontario and the Representative for Service was Ridout & Maybee LLP, 11 Holland Avenue, Suite 601, Ottawa, Ontario.
Medal struck. Aluminum. 40mm diameter.
Royal Canadian Legion are http://www.legion.ca/
