CURRIE CANADIAN VICTORIA CROSS SALE REVIEW

David Currie, grandson of Victoria Cross recipient
Lt. Col David V. Currie, poses for a photo with his grandfather's medals.

As the Canadian War Museum adds another Canadian Victoria Cross to its collection, the family of Lt.-Col. David Currie is staging a last stand battle to keep the Second World War hero’s VC in Canada.

Currie’s VC, the Commonwealth’s highest award for valour in the face of the enemy, was sold to a foreign buyer for $550,000 at a London auction in September. The war museum bid unsuccessfully on the medal, one of only 12 VCs awarded to Canadians serving in a Canadian unit during the Second World War and the only Canadian VC from the fighting on D-Day and in Normandy.

Currie’s VC, meanwhile, remains in a safety deposit box at a Kemptville bank while its new owner applies for an export permit. Since it is considered to be “of outstanding cultural significance,” the new owner needs approval from the Canadian Cultural Property Review Board to take it out of Canada. The board is set to review the sale in January and can set a period of between two and six months for a Canadian buyer to come forward with a “fair cash offer” to its new foreign owner.

Currie’s widow sold his medal to a private collector in Canada after his death in 1986. The collector put it up for auction this year.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Currie family pleads for the medal to stay in Canada. Currie’s widow, Isabel, is 105 and lives in an Ottawa nursing home. His son son, David, lives in B.C., as does his granddaughter, Brenda. His grandson, also named David Currie, lives in Hamilton.

“The government still has one last opportunity to purchase the medals from the new owner at a fair and acceptable price,” the letter says, in part. “In the military I guess this would be called ‘a last ditch stand.’ Please take this stand to ensure that we do not lose yet another piece of Canada’s history.”

To read the complete article, see:
Family stages last ditch effort to keep historic Victoria Cross in Canada (http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/family-stages-last-ditch-attempt-to-keep-historic-david-currie-vc-in-canada)

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
CURRIE CANADIAN VICTORIA CROSS TO BE SOLD (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n35a26.html)
CURRIE CANADIAN VICTORIA CROSS SOLD (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n40a32.html)

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