Mondvor

Hello PLA, That's very similar order, I think they are from same party of fakes. Here is another one. Obverse.

Rick, those trainings vere not annual. For example "Dvina" that I mentioned above was a big training in wich almost entire Military District was involved. Such big games were once in five or 10 years. If you didn't see similar awards in some groups it doesn't mean they were not possible. BTW, the chance for overseas coflict award is many times lower. He was not an officer. And in those conflicts mostly Soviet Army officers participated. And even for officers the percent was extremely low (comparing with total number of officers in Soviet Army).

I think he got his MM medal for a good results of his unit's work displayed during some major military training (tactical exercises). He was in charge of the missile launcher, so most likely his crew destroyed important target on this exercises. This was a common thing to give high awards for military exercises. For example two people got Nahimov 1st class for "Запад-81" ("West-81") military training in 1981. In 1970 were two major tactical trainings - "Dvina" (Belorussian Military District) and "Ocean" (Nothern Fleet). So this Ukraininan guy could participate in one of those "games". And I didn't get Rick's words about "geriatric hands of The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR". Rick, what do you mean?

Dolf, very nice collection of aircrafts. The last one, I beleive, is Curtiss SON-1 Seagull. Check two pictures. Second one - is exact prototype of your model, it has same number.

I think first two pages (with picture and with name) are original. His only award was Glory 3rd class. Entries about 2nd class Glory and Otvaga are fake. Take a look at the better picture of this book. The one that you placed has light reflection. But on my picture you can see ink color difference and even the shapes of the letters are different.

Dima, there is no reason to buy the blank orderbook to find its serial number. There were so many unissued late orderbooks (both with Menteshashvili and Gorbachev signatures) that tracking any serial number borders doesn't make sense. Unissued orderbooks were in every ten thousands of numbers. So there was no standart pattern which numbers belong to blank books and which ones belong to issued documents. You are absolutely right that the only way to prove that order was issued is not the presence of the document, but official paper from Soviet Army military archive in Podolsk (or Naval archive in Gatchina).

Second page.

The highest number I've seen with the orderbook (so it was issued) was 106081. I think that this orderbook is authentic, however I can not prove that. Anyway, take a look and tell me your opinions.

The highest number of "Crab" that I oserved was 140165 (here is a picture). If anyone have seen bigger number, please post an image.

Dolgushin was a commander of 156th Fighter Regiment. This regiment in turn was a part of 215th Fighter Division (normally division included 3 regiments). And the division was a part of 8th Fighter Corps (normally air corps consisted of 2 divisions). About the picture - I believe that Dolgushin is second from the left. He is only one of them with Nevsky and he looks like Dolgushin from the other picture. Three others are Holodov, Baklan and Moshin. Abbreviations belov the picture of La-7 mean: ИАП - истребительный авиационный полк (Fighter Air Regiment) ИАД - истребительная авиационная дивизия (Fighter Air Division) ИАК - истребительный авиационный корпус (Fighter Air Corps) 4 воздушная армия - 4th Air Army

Dima, what is the name of your friend?

They just scratch it out. Silver is very soft metal. It takes only few minutes to competely remove serial number with a help of sandpaper. After that highly skilled fakemakers make the surface slightly pebbed with a help of sand-throwing machine. Small particles of sand are launching under a high pressure and hit the surface of the metal making it pebbed. So all traces of polishing are gone and it's hard to uncover the fake. But in your case sand-machine was not used and polished surface is visible.

You are right! Those without rays are more common. The guys with rays probably were manufactured on the different mint (but I'm not sure).

This GPW 22221 looks good and all original except for the screwback plate. This plate is from Bravery or Military Merit medal, but not from the order. And of course the enamel on the upper ray is missing, but I believe you know that.

Of course the presence (or absence) of oxidation or ЛМД mintmark on the ring are interesting features of the medal. But they are not of the greatest importance because they vere added to the medal AFTER it was minted (manufactured). If we want to find real variations we should check differences in medals stamp or die (I'm not sure what word fits better). So we have to find the differences that occured BEFORE medal was minted. Here is an example of such difference. In one case - left picture - there is no line (ray) at the space between the hammer and its handle. The line (ray) just below is solid and unbroken. In the other case - right picture - there is a short line (ray) at the angle between hammer and its handle. The line (ray) just below has a gap where hammer's tip touches it. Veteran of Labor medal was manufactured in the amounts much bigger than any other Soviet award. By January 1, 1995 more than 39.197.000 people were awarded with this medal. So many variations exist. I described only one of them

There are not only the variations "with patina" or "without patina". Veteran of Labor medal has more prominent variations on the obverse. If anyone interested I can post some comparative pictures at the evening to explain what I mean.

Alfred, that's exactly what I said to Order of Victory

You are right Dave! I learn something new every day. And mostly I learn it from other collectors. I believe that we can learn a lot from each other. Only through communication and sharing information we can resist to fake makers

Order of Victory, I have to fit the images to the forum size as well. But if you compare my images with yours you can say they are different About the ring on your order - if you can please post nice clear images of the ring itself. Here are the examples of soldered rings. Of course they would not be that evident. Fakemakers will mask them.

Obverse. BTW, I surprised why most of the pictures on the forum are so small, that details are almost invisible. Good scanner costs less than post-war Red Banner. But people still prefer to take the pictures with cell phones...

Here is the real order with close serial number.

OK, finally I have some time to spend with my favourite hobby Was busy almost whole day About this GPW. 1. The loop at the top of the upper ray is soldered to the order, but it should be a part of the order. 2. The edges of the enamel star's reverse should have gold-plating, but on your order they do not. 3. The center of the enamel star's reverse looks polished, rivets are flattened. It means the remnants of screwpost were removed. 4. And finally... Normally I do not tell any small secrets to people who I don't know really well. But in your case I'll make an exception. Take a look at the obverse. Find the word ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ, than find letter Й in this word. Do you see small dash at the top of the letter? All suspension GPW have this dash at the shape of round dot or very short horisontal line. If you see that this dot is triangle in shape (like on your order) it means that this belongs to late screwback order. So the enamel part of your order made out of GPW Type 2. Rayed star has smoothed, licked off surface with fake patina. This is very common in cast made specimens. Serial number looks ugly and unusual. It would be nice if you can place good scans. Those pictures are too small. Maybe I can find someting else.

And one more thing. As you can see, his orderbook for GPW was issued on April 1947. The medalbook was issued 8 month later - in December 1947. Now the question - why they didn't indicate both his medals in the orderbook, but instead they made separate book for the medals? Normally if a person got both orders and medals they all listed in the orderbook together. And also the medalbook number does not correspond with the date of issue. At the December of 1947 the Б series of medalbook was already in buisness. A 603362 corresponds more to the first part of 1947. By the way, on February 1945 Derbin already was at the rank of officer. I don't know when he got his officer rank, but from March 1944 (when the medals were issued) to Feruary 1945 (when he was a Lieutenant) passed less than one year. And he got two medals in 11 month! How lucky!!! But on March 1944 the medal was just issued. First documented event of Ushakov medal being awarded on the Black Sea was on April 20, 1944. So we have less than 10 month...

If you take a look at the medal book you can see that it lost color. Instead of being orange-red color it's almost white. Ink color in all notes looks very pale. It happends when fake makers dilute the ink. They think that notes written with diluted ink look old Next step. Lets take a look at the stamps "Медалью Ушакова" and "Медалью Нахимова". In real medalbooks Russians never used symbol " " in the stamps of those medals. Here is an example how does the real entry looks like.

Second page.