Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Most Noble Order of the Garter, a superb ‘made-up’ Garter with solid gold letters on dark blue velvet with additional decoration in gold thread, the mordant of the buckle finely engraved with the usual formal design and bearing maker’s mark ‘IE’ for John Edwards together with London Hallmarks for 22 carat gold (Lion Passant, Leopard’s head, and ‘sun in spleandour’, this last mark denoting 22 carat fineness and only in use from 1816 to 1844), the pendant gold chape also finely engraved with the usual formal design but not marked, the letters, chape and fabric of the garter probably later refurbishments, extremely fine and very rare £5000-6000

“Certainly from the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign and possibly before, garters have been ‘made up’. That is to say, the garter is formed into the knot which would have appeared [as] if it was fastened conventionally, but the buckle is not used as such and is in part a clip. The garter is passed around the leg, the knot being placed towards the outside, the two pieces of the ‘buckle’ then being pushed together and locked.” (The Most Noble Order of the Garter by Peter J. Begent & Hubert Chesshyre refers)