How to mount medals in a shadow box without harming them

Mount a medal by what it already has. If it has a pin or a mounting bar on the back, pass the pin through the cloth of a fabric-covered board and close it. If it hangs loose on a ribbon, hold it with a few loops of thread that pass round the metal and over the ribbon, not through them. Do not use glue, hot glue or sticky pads on a medal or its ribbon, and do not push a pin through the face of a ribbon.

The care rules here come from museum conservation notes. The mounting steps are practical advice that follows those rules, not a method taken from those notes. Everything else in this guide is detail: how to handle the metal, which fabrics are safe behind silver, how to keep the ribbons from fading, and where to find the order the medals go in.

What museums say about medals

The Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), a Canadian government agency, publishes a short note, Basic Care of Coins, Medals and Medallic Art. Four points from it shape how a medal should be framed:

Handle by the edges, with gloves. The handler “should wear clean, well-fitting cotton or plastic gloves to protect the metal surface from the skin’s corrosive oils and acids”. For silver, cotton only, “because the sulphur in latex causes silver to tarnish”.
The ribbon is the fragile part. “Although coins and medallic art are not sensitive to light, the ribbons that usually accompany military or commemorative medals are. The ribbons, often silk, are highly susceptible to fading.”
Keep the case. “Many medals are stored in their presentation cases. The cases are an important part of the object, and every effort should be made to keep the two items together.”
Leave the surface alone unless you know what it is. Some medals, “such as the Victoria Cross, were issued with a patina, and some were painted or enamelled. These original surfaces should be retained.”

Before you mount anything

Photograph each medal, front and back. CCI recommends “up-to-date photographs (obverse and reverse)” in case of theft or an insurance claim. The photographs also record any engraving on the back, which will be hidden once the medal is mounted.
Lay the medals out on paper the size of the backing and take a picture of the layout.
Do not polish as a first step. CCI’s note says most medals “were meant to have their bright surfaces maintained”, and describes removing light tarnish with a jeweller’s cloth while the ribbon is wrapped to protect it. It also says patinated, painted and enamelled surfaces must be kept and, writing of coins, that most metal cleaners “contain abrasives that can scratch”. If you are not sure which kind you have, mount the medal as it is.

The board and the fabric

Medals are pinned or stitched to a board covered in cloth. Acid-free foam board 5 mm thick takes pins and stitches well; for the box itself and its depth, about 20 to 25 mm inside for medals, see how to make a shadow box.

Choose the cloth with the metal in mind. CCI’s bulletin on display products says “cotton, linen and polyester are safe products to use with objects”. Wool is the one to think about: it can release sulphur gases, and “only when wool is almost touching sensitive metals, such as silver, is there a cause for concern”. A silver medal lying on wool felt is that case. Use cotton velvet, linen or polyester felt behind silver.

Two more cautions from the same sources:

No PVC. CCI says the plasticiser in vinyl (PVC) coin holders is “particularly corrosive to copper alloy coins, producing a green corrosion product”. Bronze and brass medals are copper alloys too.
New wood gives off acid. “Wooden cabinets and display cases, particularly when new, can emit acidic vapours that can corrode many metals. Oak cabinets in particular should be avoided.” If the box is freshly built, painted or glued, leave it open to air for three to four weeks before the medals go in, the time CCI gives for adhesives inside an enclosure.

Medals with a pin or a mounting bar

Many service medals are issued on, or later mounted on, a bar with a brooch pin so that they can be worn. Ribbon bars, badges and lapel pins have pins and clutches of their own.

Mark where the pin will enter and leave the cloth.
Open the pin and pass it through the cloth that covers the board, as you would through a jacket, and bring it back out. Do not force it through the board itself: a bent pin is damage that cannot be put right. If the cloth alone will not carry the weight, add a loop of thread over the bar, as in the next section.
Close the clasp. For clutch-back badges, push the posts straight through and fit the clutches behind the board.
Check that the medal hangs straight before fixing the next one.

Nothing has been added to the medal and nothing altered. It can be lifted off and worn the same day.

Loose medals on a ribbon

A medal with no pin needs a mount that does not pierce it. Use thread.

Thread a fine needle with cotton or polyester-and-cotton thread in the colour of the backing.
Come up through the board beside the suspender, the metal bar or ring that joins the medal to its ribbon. Pass the thread over the metal and go back down on the other side. Repeat once and knot behind the board. The loop carries the weight on metal, not on silk.
At the top of the ribbon, make a second loop over the ribbon, coming up at one edge and going down at the other, so the thread lies across it like a strap. Do not sew through the weave.
If the medal swings forward, add one more loop low on the ribbon, hidden behind the medal’s rim.

The CCI notes read for this guide give no method for fixing a medal to a board. The loops are practical advice that applies the rule in its note on stitches used in textile conservation: “use as few stitches as possible” and “avoid piercing the threads of the artifact”. Keep the loops snug, not tight. Its warning that tension “can break old threads” applies to an old ribbon as much as to cloth.

Sports medals with neck ribbons

A race or tournament medal hangs on a long loop of ribbon, far more than a box can show.

Fold, do not cut. Fold the ribbon into a neat stack or a V behind or above the medal, so that the full length is still there.
Hold the folds with thread straps across the ribbon, as above, and carry the medal’s weight with a loop through its ring.
Several medals read best in rows, each on its own pair of loops. Overlapping the medals like fish scales fits more in, but metal rubbing on metal scratches, so leave a gap or slip a strip of polyester film between them.

Coins and medallions

A coin has nothing to pin. As practical advice, rest it on a small ledge of acrylic and tie it back with a padded loop, or keep it in a coin capsule and fix the capsule. CCI lists the plastics that are safe against metal: “polyethylene, polypropylene, poly(ethylene terephthalate) (e.g. Mylar D, Kodar), polystyrene, or poly(methyl methacrylate) (e.g. Plexiglas)”. If a seller cannot say what a holder is made of, CCI’s advice is to find another supplier.

What not to use

Short cut	What goes wrong
Hot glue or superglue on the back	CCI: adhesive on an object can “suffer bond failure and cause staining”. The medal drops inside the box, or the glue will not come off
Double-sided tape or sticky foam pads	“It can be assumed that all tapes will fail to adhere one day”
A pin through the ribbon	It makes a hole that cannot be undone, and the whole weight hangs from it
Bare brass or steel wire round the medal	Metal on metal scratches, and CCI lists bare brass mounts as a corrosion risk for some metals in damp air. Pad wire with thin tubing
Vinyl sleeves	Green corrosion on bronze and brass

Light, and the case for copies

Light is what a shadow box adds to a medal’s life that a drawer did not. CCI’s guidance for museums is that medals with ribbons “should be stored in the dark and their exposure to light should be limited”, with display lighting kept to 50 lux, a tenth of the 500 lux it gives for an office. Its light guidance estimates that the most sensitive colours, a group that includes most early synthetic dyes, show a first noticeable fade after 1.5 to 20 years at 50 lux, and after about seven weeks to two years at 500 lux.

At home that means:

Hang the box on a wall that never gets direct sun, away from radiators and damp outside walls.
Ask for glazing that filters ultraviolet. CCI notes that it gives “some protection against light damage”, but that the protection “is not complete”.
For medals that matter greatly, consider mounting a replica set and keeping the originals in their cases in the dark. In the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defence asks that replica and miniature medals be bought “from an officially licensed replica medal manufacturer”.

Metal has its own enemy, damp. CCI says humidity for metals “should be kept as low as possible” and that 35 to 55% is the norm in mixed collections. Kitchens, bathrooms and unheated rooms are the wrong place.

The order of the medals

This guide does not tell you what order military medals go in, because each country and each service sets its own, and it changes. Go to the source:

Your service’s uniform regulations, which set out the order of precedence for every decoration it awards.
United Kingdom: the government’s medals guidance states that “there are strict rules surrounding the wearing of medals and decorations”, points to the order of wear published in The London Gazette, and gives the MOD Medal Office as the contact for questions.
United States: replacements and missing awards are requested from the branch the veteran served in; the National Archives explains how to request them.
A unit association or veterans’ organisation can often check a layout for you before you fix anything.

Sports medals have no rules. Date order, or biggest in the middle, both work.

A name plate

A small plate with a name, rank, dates or an event gives the box its meaning to someone who was not there. Text to SVG turns typed words into outlines sized in millimetres, which a cutting machine can cut from card or vinyl, or a laser can engrave. It makes the lettering only. Fix the plate to the backing, not to a medal.

Questions

Can I use magnets? Only where nothing has to be stuck to the medal. Bronze, silver and brass are not magnetic, so a magnet behind the board will not hold them.

Should I take medals off their mounting bar? No. Mount the bar as it is. Removing and re-sewing ribbons is a job for a medal mounter.

Is velvet all right? Cotton or polyester velvet, yes. Keep wool away from silver.

How deep should the box be? Measure the thickest thing, usually a star or a cross, and add 10 mm so that nothing touches the glass.