Coins, Tokens, Historical Medals, Cabinets & Books

FRANCE, Musée de la Légion d’Honneur, 1925, a uniface gilt-bronze plaque by G.J.P. Moreau-Vauthier, bust of Napoleon right encircled by crowned wreath and flanked by eagles, back named (Au Lieutenant de Vaisseau Albert Levillain, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre en temoignage durable de profonde et toute fraternelle amitie, Paris Septembre 1925, Jean Mazand), 155 x 103mm. Extremely fine and very rare, in original green fitted case of issue; a poignant medal of particular Irish interest £200-300

Albert Alexandre Levillain (1877-1946) entered the French navy at Cherbourg in May 1895 and served in the Madagascar campaign later that year. Following a spell at the Engineering Academy in Brest in 1896-7, he served on several ships and submarines in Cherbourg, and later Tonkin before becoming the harbourmaster at Saigon in July 1911. Back in France in 1915 he enlisted with the French naval reserve and took part in the bombardments of the German submarine bases in Ostende and Zeebrugge in early 1917. Posted to the minesweeper squadron in Saint-Nazaire, he was appointed commander of the Nomadic in November 1917. Demobilized in March 1919, he finished his naval career as head of the commercial harbour of Saigon from 1922-35, before retiring to Marseille.

SS Nomadic, the ‘little sister’ of RMS Titanic, was requisitioned by the French government as a minesweeper on 25 April 1917 and sent to Brest for a refit prior to Levillain assuming command. Today the vessel is preserved as a major tourist attraction in Belfast by the Nomadic Preservation Society, which was gifted with some of Levillain’s World War I decorations by two of his grandsons in July last year