2017-05-16 Tue

A Netherlands-based MPO Auctions’ offered a 1902 satirical bronze medal, with a rough strike, graded Very Fine to Extremely Fine, on 27th May for an opening bid of €750. The medal mocks the British victors and honours the sacrifice of prisoners during the Second Boer War.

The medal commemorates Ragama Boer POW Camp in Ceylon. On 9th August 1900, the first batch of prisoners came to Ceylon after which 5,000 more prisoners landed. The main camp was Diyatalawa, the other one was Mount Lavinia and Ragama was where foreign volunteers, dissidents and irreconcilables resided. Experts believe that the Germans, Hollanders, Irish Americans were the most notorious ones and were termed as the scum of the scum. The reverse of the medal features the same term.

The obverse depicts a man in a hat, beside a palm tree, cutting it down with machete, and hut in the background. It also includes the date and words translating to “British civilisation” and “Ragama Camp reminder.”

At the end of the war, most of the prisoners in Ceylon were sent to South Africa with the oath of allegiance to King Edward VII. Foreign volunteers and those who did not sign the oath were sent on Dutch ships to the Netherlands. The dies were made by C.F. Keyzer, a former employee of the NZASM, the Dutch-South African Railway Co.