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I would say it is fine for him to sell it.

However I can understand the idea from others that this is disgraceful but I think this ideal is slightly misplaced.

If you are Awarded a National Honour from a Country / International Institution / Sovereign then I would say it is a disgrace or some cases Treason to sell or pawn the award. The Medal's I have from my time in the UK Armed forces, have my name on them and Service No, but they are not mine, they are Awarded by the Sovereign and therefore can only be taken off me by the Sovereigns order, I am merely the Custodian. It is technically not an offence (for a Civilian) to sell your Medals although you are selling something that doesn't belong to you, but it is considered bad form and contemptuous to the Crown, many are passed down through generations and they will end up in a collection or sold to collectors.

For example I would consider the following Disgraceful:-

1. Selling the "Congressional Medal of Honor" or similar award you have been given.
2. Selling a "Victoria Cross" or similar award you have been given.
3. Rescinding/ disavowing a "Knighthood/peerage from the Sovereign after being invested".
4. Selling or disavowing a NOBEL prize after accepting it.

As the Slayer Sword isn't anything like any of these examples I would say he is free to do what he likes with it.

 Rayvon wrote:


The thing is, with respect to those things that you find disrespectful to sell, if the winner of the medal is in a bad place or selling them helps him family live more comfortably, then more power to them i say.
afterall he is still the winner of X medal, even if he does not have it.

If you are still serving in the military it is an Offence, if you are civilian and do it, you can actually be stripped of the award and have to return the Medal or else you will have to Pay for it. There are precedents for this, but given it is the Crown Courts and Crown Magistrates it is likely you wouldn't get a fair trial and it wouldn't stand up. But Victoria Cross recipients have been stripped of it before:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Victoria_Cross_forfeitures

Just because you received an Award doesn't make it yours, you can be stripped of it, and no longer allowed to have the privilege and entitlements it bestows. Selling something that doesn't strictly belong to you is a considerable problem, especially as possession is 9 tenths of the Law.

Equally many awards come with a Stipend or Monetary Award, stripping of the Award may well require you to pay back the stipend as you have broken the terms of the Award.

With modern Newspapers etc it would be a PR disaster all round, however if we looked after our returning Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen a bit better it wouldn't be much of an issue. As it stands it is likely to get worse over the next 20 years as PTSD manifests.

Anyway OT, selling a sword you get as a trophy for painting little men is a non-issue.

Moving this in a slightly different direction, isn't it interesting that many of the Companies that supported Lance Armstrong are actively considering or demanding the money they gave as sponsorship to be returned.

If we were to apply this to the Slayer Sword, what would everyone's opinion be if GW asked for it back? (this a purely hypothetical point I was just curious as the Lance Armstrong case has brought this particular scenario to light). What rights do sponsors have? and is this different if you have been found to be cheating/ illegal? What if you have been found to do something controversial but not illegal? What about things that aren't illegal but are still disgraceful, taking steroids etc . (I've never considered this in any depth)

What if the Sponsor decided that the selling of a Sword invalidated the entire point of the competition? And therefore wanted it back? I'm playing devils adovcate here, as my position is already laid out above that it's his and he can do what he likes but I am interested to hear of any examples where sponsors of competitions have felt that their prize has been treated in an ungracious manner and have pulled support?