Have you a ribbon bar, or a medal or an award with a ribbon bar that belongs to a relative or once belonged to an ancestor that and you don’t know what it was awarded for? Then below are a number of ribbon bars that may help you to identify it. The list is far from exhaustive. The ribbon bars are not to scale, the colours may not be true due to your computer’s graphic display and more than one medal / award can be represented by a particular combination of coulours

So what are ribbon bars? Ribbon bars are decorations that are worn by military, police and fire service personnel or by civilians. Ribbon bars are mainly used when wearing full decoration, or when wearing awards or medals are considered inappropriate or impractical and are normally worn for office or dress occasions

Each military force has its own rules on what ribbons are worn in which order of precedence. Some awards are "ribbon only", having no associated medal. The ribbon bar usually matches the ribbon on the medal. Today, ribbons may either be individually lined up, or mass mounted to a single fastener known as a “ribbon rack” and secured to the chest

Click on the description of a ribbon bar and the link will take you to a location where you can read information about it

If you find a descriptive error or a broken link, please inform us enquiries@bfhg.org.uk