Bespoke Medal Framing · Manchester
Hand-built conservation frames for military, sporting and commemorative medals — UV glass, archival mounting, multi-aperture layouts with cap badge, photograph and engraved plaque. Made in our Timperley workshop, shipped UK-wide.
Built around the recipient
Whether it's a grandfather's WWII service group, a father's Long Service & Good Conduct, or your own marathon PB — a medal carries a story that deserves to be told properly. We frame medals from our Timperley workshop with the same conservation techniques museums use: hidden archival mounting, acid-free boards, UV glass.
No drilling, no glue, no pins through the ribbon. Court-mounted and swing-mounted sets are preserved exactly as worn. Multi- aperture mounts let us combine medals with cap badges, regimental insignia, photographs, citations and engraved plaques in one composed display.
Each medal is mounted with conservation-safe fixings — never glued, never drilled. Ribbons sit flat and true, clasps and bars stay original. We frame full sets, single campaign medals, sporting medals and commemorative coins.
Conservation glass on every medal frame to stop ribbon fade and tarnish over decades on the wall. Museum-grade and anti-reflective upgrades available for brightly lit rooms or south-facing display walls.
Medals alongside cap badges, regimental crest, photograph, citation and engraved plaque — all cut into a single conservation mount. We design the layout with you before cutting a thing.
When a group arrives
Medals usually reach us the way they left a drawer — loose in a tin, still on the original bar, or wrapped in tissue someone folded round them decades ago. Before anything is moved, the group is logged in against your name and photographed exactly as it arrived: the face, the reverse, and a close frame of the naming impressed around each rim. That record is made first, so there is never a question later about what came in or in what condition.
After that, handling stays to the minimum the job needs, on a clean bench, in the same hands that will build the frame. We do not drill, glue or pin through a medal for any layout or any frame. If a suspender is loose, a ribbon is perishing or something has been repaired before, you hear about it from us before we plan around it, not afterwards.
Then we agree the layout together, on the bench or by photograph, and you sign it off before a single board is cut. If you’d rather think the display decisions through first, our guide to how to frame medals walks through the conventions at your own pace.
In the workshop
Every medal frame starts as a blank sheet of conservation board and is cut around the pieces sitting in front of us. Each medal gets its own recess, cut to that medal’s outline and cradled so the board carries the weight. Nothing hangs off its ribbon for the next thirty years on a wall, and nothing slides about behind the glass if the frame is knocked.
Depth is set by the deepest item in the display. A suspended medal on a full ribbon drop needs noticeably more room behind the glass than a flat table medal or a commemorative coin, and where a group mixes the two we build the box to the deepest piece and pack the rest forward so the whole group reads level. Nothing is ever allowed to rest against the glazing.
When photographs, cap badges, citations or an engraved plaque join the medals, every aperture is cut into one board so the spacing reads as a single composition rather than a collage. AR70 Premium glazing — anti-reflective, blocking 70% of UV — goes on as standard, with AR99 Museum (anti-reflective, 99% UV) where the frame will hang in strong light.
Timings, prices & delivery
Medal framing takes 7–10 working days from the moment the layout is signed off. A single campaign medal in a deep conservation frame is typically £120–£180, and a full military set with badges, a photograph and an engraved plaque sits between £220 and £380. Working to a remembrance date or a milestone birthday? Tell us when you enquire and we’ll schedule the bench time round it.
What moves the price is the number of medals and apertures, the finished size of the frame, the depth the box has to run to, the moulding you choose, any glazing upgrade and whether an engraved plaque goes underneath. Send a photo of the group with a ruler or a coin beside it and we’ll come back the same day with an exact figure — message us here or call 0161 669 1835.
Finished frames are double-boxed and shipped insured anywhere in the UK, or you can collect from the Timperley workshop and have us talk you through the build in person. Either way the frame is made here in South Manchester by the family who quoted it — no part of a medal job is ever sent out to a trade workshop.
Fast Quote
Three ways to frame them
One medal, mounted dead-centre on a deep conservation mount with optional engraved plaque underneath naming the recipient, regiment and service dates. Classic and quiet.
A complete service group — court-mounted or swing-mounted as worn — displayed with cap badge, regimental insignia and a portrait photograph. Multi-aperture mount cut to your spec.
Marathon and Ironman medals, school and club awards, commemorative coronation and jubilee pieces. Same conservation build as military work — sized around the achievement.
Recent work
Beyond medals
The same shadow-box and conservation work goes into signed football shirts, boxing gloves, cricket bats, ceremonial swords and rugby caps. If it carries a story you want kept safely on the wall, we'll build a frame for it.
See our memorabilia framing page for the full range of sports and keepsake displays, or the main picture framing service for everything else.
Frequently asked
Also framed in our workshop