Former head of Punjab Police cherishes collecting war medals

Chandigarh, May 22 (ANI): Sarabjit Singh, who has been former Director General of Police from Punjab, has developed a special interest in collecting war medals.

The fascination to collect war medals started in 2001, when one day he happened to juggle through some medals at an antique shop. Since then there was no looking back.

Today, the 65-year-old Sarabjit Singh continue his deep interest in collecting medals.

"I was reluctantly taken to an antique shop to look for antiques. I found a bowl full of rusty looking old medals. While fiddling through them, I found medals of the Word War I and II and even pre-World War I. Being interested in medals because of my profession and also because I am a son of an army officer, I immediately took a liking to them," said Sarabjit Singh.

His collection includes medals belonging to the era of Tipu Sultan of Mysore, the 1857 Indian War of Independence (referred as Indian Mutiny), World War-I and World War-II, first and second Afghan Wars, both Anglo-Sikh Wars and Maratha Wars.

In his collections Singh also has several medals of Indian princely states.

"Very few people collect medals. So the clientele is limited. Accordingly the people dealing with this are also limited. But then there is a society called OMRS (Orders Medals and Ribbon Society), which is registered in UK. They list out the medal collectors all over the world. The members of the society are 7000 now. This society helps us to trace out the history, authenticity and value of a medal because each medal has a story and history behind it," said Sarabjit Singh.

Singh became a member of the Orders Medals and Ribbons Society, UK and attended their annual conventions in London.

Incidentally, London is the global centre for medals with world famous auctioneers and collectors hunting for new additions to their 'haul' of medals. By Sunil Sharma (ANI)