Mondvor

Oh, I see. But what is the number of his order? It is obviously another Shevchenko, not the one received 107949 "crab".

Wow!! They are spreading around!!! This is a third observed order. Thanks for sharing pictures

Gerd, it is not ROMVA. It is ROMVD. Which states for Районный Отдел Министерства Внутренних Дел - Regional Department of Ministry of Internal Affairs. NKVD after the war was converted to MVD but carried out same functions.

Oh, thanks!! I thought they were from WWII

Second badge.

Gentlemen, would you please help me to identify those two badges. Are they rare? My primary area of interest is Soviet awards, so I don't know anything about British medals Thanks!

ADD means Авиация Дальнего Действия (АДД) - Long Distance Operating Aviation. During second world war Soviet ADD was equiped mostly with Pe-8 and Il-4 bombers.

Dave, at 3 AM on September 26th first unit of 12th Army (commander Major-General Danilov) started to cross Dnepr river between villages Petrovo and Svistunovo. It was 333rd Infantry division, to be more precise it was assault group under the command of captain Strizhachenko. This small unit captured a bridgehead and for the whole day was fighting with Germans. Next night (September 27) two regiments of 333rd Infantry division (1116th and 1120th Infantry Regiments) joined assault unit and participated in holding and spreading the bridgehead. 244th Infantry Division crossed Dnepr the same day - early in the morning on September 26, but in a different place (near Zaporozhye).

Dave, really cool citation. This guy was a highly trained professional of air-defence business. But who is Anatoli?

Very common variation, nothing special. People must be out of their mind to pay that much for an ordinary item...

Just want to make some additions to Rick's translation. In the citation on section 3 it says: Platoon commander assistant, now in the reserve, enlisted to Uch-Kurgansk Military Registration Office (Уч-Курган is a city in Uzbekistan), works as a fire inspector in NKVD Regional Department (РО - Районный Отдел - Regional Department). He was born in the village of Babinkino.

Gerd, very nice early GPW! Mortar crews did not survive for a long time in the war. Normally, mortar man died in 6th or 7th battle according to statistics. So this guy was very lucky to survive the war.

My respect to jimzammit You just suggested very wise idea about selling out the groups. If some collector wants to get rid of the group because of some reason, it is better to offer this group to fellow collectors at first. And only if no one is interested, then pass this group to a dealer or to EBay. Doing this way we probably can save many groups.

I think I know who are you talking about Some of my friends have same kind of attitude to documents and researches. They are simply not interested in "stories". And I am constantly trying to change their point of view. Sometimes it works. One of my old friends in Ukraine finally shifted to documented groups and even asked me to make a research for him... I didn't know that you spent several years in Russia. What city did you live? Then you should agree that it was a horrible time. The big country just broke apart into pieces and chaos and disintegration covered everything. I remember empty shelves in the stores and huge lines for food. Very bad criminal situation, many local gangs, mafia and so on. Unemployement, inflation, etc. One hundred dollars was a treasure. That's why poor people sold out their father's awards almost "for a song". At this time (1992 - 96) the majority of high-ranking awards were brought to USA and Western Europe by Russian dealers. Of course at that time not many people in Russia were thinking about research. They were trying to survive. To be honest, not many American collectors were aware about the possibility of research as well. I think that only after 1996 first attempts to research something were made. Now things changed in Russia and Ukraine. You should visit those countries again. You'll be surprised. Now you can buy everything if you have money - from the newest BMW model to antique French collector's wine. There are many wealthy people called "new russians". Some of them are smart, some are not. But most of them like to invest money. And big percent of them invested their money to awards. And after 2001 the backflow had started. Many interesting groups returned back to Russia from USA and Germany, because Russians payed double and sometimes triple price. But I hope that sooner or later the prices should stabilize. Otherwise I'll switch to collecting bugs and butterflies

For Military Merit medal Shevchenko probably got separate medal book.

Many thanks Dave Now we learned an important thing. Some "crabs" with 6-digit numbers were issued. Cool! Shevchenko's unit was located in Chita region. This region is on South-Eastern part of Russia and borders with China and Mongolia.

Ed, I totally agree about "powerful and important points" made by Dave. Award's history is cool and extremely interesting thing. That's why I love it with all my soul. But I would not agree with you about "variations" and "subvariations" importance. We should not underestimate their value. Let me ask you very simple question. If you would not study small variations, "watermarks" and other things that you called "noise in manufacturing process", how would you protect yourself from fake makers? Nowadays they produce high level fakes and without a knowledge of small details of each variation you simply would not be able to recognize a fake. You can buy an order and pay for a full research but what is a reason to research a fake? If you need an example just remember screwback BH. Little study on mintmark's configuration of this variation could help you to avoid big mistake. So I think that going deeper to the structure of the awards (even to the limit that you called "electron-microscopic uniqueness") could probably help each end every of us to resist fake-makers. I think we should consolidate our forces in this direction

Dave, I think here is some kind of "apples" and "oranges" mixed together. Neither me nor other forum members didn't even mention about splitting any group for taking rare variation out of it. The only idea was that we like variations and this is it. If I find interesting variation within a group I would simply keep the whole thing. The story that you told us is awful and this person was quite stupid to break a group apart. But do not judge about Russian collectors because of that case. I know many of them and believe me that most of them are very interested in "historical" part of the award. It's kind of sad to hear from you this opinion about collectors from former USSR. Many of them are even more educated in historical part of the awards than you cam imagine. As for me, on my "scale of values" the story behind the group (or single award) is a top priority. That's why I already researched most of my groups and plan to research more. But variations hold "number 2" position in my priorities. Every variation is a part of own award's history. It tells us about statute changes, about different mints it was manufactured with and many others.

Dan, here we go. I put red circles on those "long" and "short" wings. Sorry, I have no idea what is the correct name for this part of a tank.

Dan, "short wing" is on the right and common "long wing" is on the left. When I come home from my job I can post comparative pictures of those variations as well as the number range for "short wing".

I was talking about "short wing" variation. The medal that you displayed has "long wing", it is visible even from the small picture.

Very interesting discussion, gentlemen. I want to tell my opinion on this topic. We are all different. And every collector decides by himself what to collect. For example I have a friend Alex Filer (you know him probably) and he only collects screwback orders. He would buy screwback Red Banner but he is not interested in suspension variation of the same award. The other friend of mine collects only Red Stars. But he is buying every tiny variation of this order and also buying Red Stars from every 10.000 number range. It looks strange, but this is his way. So I think, that it is very personal what to buy and how much to pay. I know people in Russia who are crazy about awards with "mint mistakes". Sometimes they pay 5 times of the regular price to get this item. I would never do the same, but I respect their point of view. Maybe you know that I'm running a web site about Soviet Awards. So I'm trying to describe every little variation or sub-variation of particular order or medal. Even though I'm not interested in small sub-variations (I more prefer to study the story of the award), but I would describe them to help variation-lovers. I guess that the more classification is full and detailed, the more it useful. Some people can collect only "types", some can extend their collections to "variations" and some may have fun going deeper into "subvariations". Also you all know that prices are extremely high today. Lets say I have already bought all cheap types and variations. But I can not afford to spend thousands of dollars for expensive staff. But I'm a collector and my instinct pushes me to buy something new. What should I do in this case? Right, I would go to subvariations. About this variation of Bravery medal with short "wing". It is well known variation on Russian market. But it is not very rare ore unique. It has very clear number ranges and probably is a result of die press-form reparing. BTW my grandfather got this variation of Bravery medal. So it's all up to you wether or not to buy it If you still have a chance to obtain it for regular Type 2 Bravery price, then do not hesitate...

Second page.

OK Dave! But first I want to post the highest number I've ever seen with a document. I'm not sure if it's original or not. The Decree data is the same as in Novruzov's orderbook. Serial numbers of both order and orderbook are pretty close to those in Novruzov's group. Could be real and could be fake. First page.

This situation is true not only for "Service to Motherland" order, but for many other orders as well. Here is a very brief explanation. Orders were given to recipients in their units. Certain groups of awards were sent to different Military Districts. For example Far Eastern Military district got the numbers from 20.000 to 25.000. At the same time North Caucasian Military District got the numbers from 35.000 to 40.000 and Kiev Military District received the ranges from 40.000 to 50.000. When the Award Decree came out (for example on February 23, 1980) all those districts issued the numbers from their ranges at the same time. Same thing is for October Revolution, Friendship of Nations and other orders.