Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Decoration, EIIR cypher, reverse dated 1964 in fitted Royal Mint case of issue.
Condition: Extremely Fine
The Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, post-nominal letters VD until c. 1947 and VRD thereafter, was instituted in 1908. It could be awarded to part-time commissioned officers in the United Kingdom's Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after twenty years of service as efficient and thoroughly capable officers. The decoration was a Naval version of the Volunteer Officers' Decoration and its successor, the Territorial Decoration.
The decoration could also be awarded to part-time commissioned officers in the Naval Volunteer Reserves of Colonial Auxiliary Forces throughout the British Empire.
The award of the decoration was discontinued in the United Kingdom in 1966, when the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, composed of civilian volunteers, was merged with the Royal Naval Reserve, composed of Merchant Navy seamen. It was superseded by its identical sister decoration, the Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Reserve.
The New Zealand version, the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve Decoration, is still being awarded
