United States (Champion Paper Co.): 1942 silver WW2 deployment medal presented to Logan Robertson

United States (Champion Paper Co.): 1942 silver WW2 deployment medal presented to Logan Robertson

Silver, 38 mm approx. Private issue.

Mintage: unknown. Possibly unique in silver.

Dr. Logan Thomson Robertson (1916-1987) was my maternal grandfather. He was the son of Reuben Buck Robertson, Sr. (1879-1972), who was the president and chairman of Champion Paper Company, which operated in Canton, North Carolina.
He attended the Yale School of Medicine until World War 2 intervened, after which he became a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Among other deployments, he was
stationed at MacDill Air Base in Tampa, where my mother, Lillian "Happy" Dobbs (nee Robertson) was born in 1944. Granddaddy received his M.D. degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1942 and also studied at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and at Duke University Medical School.

This silver medal was presented to him by Champion when he went off to serve in the war. Interestingly, though I had previously handled eight similar medals in bronze which had been issued to other Champion employees, this one- my grandfather's- did not come down to me as a family heirloom, but rather through the kindness of a stranger named Lucy Brannen, who had somehow acquired it. She tracked down my mother with some internet sleuthing, then sent the medal to Mom, who gave it to me.

I know of no other Champion medals in silver. It has some wear on it, so perhaps Granddaddy carried it as a pocket piece for a while. Not long before this medal so serendipitously appeared, I had reunited a World War 1 love token with a descendant of its original owner, so it was fun to be on the receiving end of a similar quest.



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Thanks. Probably the most sentimental piece in my collection, for obvious reasons. One I’ll pass down to the next generation (or maybe a grandchild, if I get one).

Would never sell it, obviously. It’s worth more to me than it would be to anyone else, anyway.