Filip Konowal - The Victoria Cross Medal

The Victoria Cross Medal

The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa purchased Konowal's Victoria Cross and other medals in 1969.

The medal went missing sometime in the 1970s, apparently stolen, and was sold to an antique shop along with some Hawaiian coins in the mid-1990s. The shop owner believed the medal was a fake, as it was inscribed with "For Valour" – evidently not realizing that all VCs awarded to Canadians had the English motto. (The source of confusion was the fact that a new Canadian VC was introduced into the Canadian Honours System in 1993, bearing the Latin motto Pro Valore). The medal was rediscovered when the shop owner offered it to the Jeffrey Hoare Auction House in London, Ontario in April 2004. A British collector discovered the auction and notified Lubomyr Luciuk, co-author of a booklet about Konowal, who took steps to have the medal secured. It was recovered by police, and returned to permanent display at the War Museum on 23 August 2004, 87 years after it was awarded.

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