Mondvor

2.

Just some pictures with straight mintmark from 70.XXX serial number range.

Hi Gerd, The first digit is 7, so this is not reissue - just a regular GPW 1st class. Very nice order anyway

All enamels have different colour on the perifery (near the edge bordering with the metal). Red enamel normally gives yellow to amber shade. Blue enamel gives white shade. White enamel normally gives gray shade. Fake enamels give different shades. Take a look at fake Kutuzov. White enamel has brown shade instead of gray. I would like to post whole picture but the limitations didn't me allow to do so, that's why I cut it a little bit.

Reverse

Until recently no one tried to make fake "mirror reverse" because that was not easy. But because the prices go up, fakemakers did the first attempt. Looks ugly and easy to identify as a fake, but this is just first attempt. So be prepared... Obverse

Well, I don't think I'm a real expert. I still have million things to learn. But I do have some amount of knowledge and I would like to share this knowledge with anyone who is interested

Well, we have to keep in mind that fake makers improve fake's quality every year. Prices for rare orders increased up to 5 times since 2002 in some cases. So fakemakers can invest more money in their production. They now use mint technology (instead of cast technology), they use hot enamel. Sometimes they take apart real order and make two fakes using some real parts in each fake. I have dozens of examples, but this is different topic. Forget about fake examples described in McDaniel's book. It was 10 years ago. All fakes changed... And we shoud be aware.

That's OK, Doc, no problem But I was talking about BHs, not RBs. I already explained why I consider them to be fakes and illustrated my opinion with some pictures. First of all this is a mintmark, than this is privets position, fake patina and unusual handwriting in serial number. I beleive that one of them (19261) was made out of regular suspension type s/n around 100.000. They cut out the loop, changed serial number and soldered fake screwpost. BTW sometimes they use real screwposts from Red Stars in 100 - 200.000 range.

Dave, here is a back side of the picture. His name is Sorin Zavel Abramovich (Сорин Завель Абрамович).

Oh, now I see... But still, as far as I know Russians did not use this type of attachment. For every day uniform they used ribbon bars and for parade uniform they used... look at the picture

As far as I know, Russians did never stich their orders to uniform. And even if they did, why make this complicated pin? It would be much easier just to make two soldered metal rings on the reverse to attach threads to them.

Dave found very interesting detail. The order on Ebay is different from one that I've posted. Sorry, I didn't pay attention on that fact, my bad After Dave's message I looked at them carefully and found that mintmark is on different positions. What does that mean? It means that this is not private jewellers work, this is not a replica for a theater or movie, this is not simple sloppy fake. This looks like an official governmental issue. But how could be possible that one country officialy makes awards of another country? I know, it sounds like a bullshit. But it could be only one possible explanation. As you all know, according with the Decree of March 11, 1985 all participants of Great Patriotic War were awarded with GPW order (Type 3). This is a tremendous number of orders. Millions of them. That is why orders were produced not only on Leningrad and Moscow mints, but also on other factories - Factory "Russian Gems", Moscow Jewelery Factory, Kaliningrad Amber Factory, Sverdlovsk Factory, Tallin Jewelery Factory, Mstera Factory and others. In some European country (I don't know exactly in which one) could be significant number of veterans who fought against Nazism and have the rights to be awarded with GPW according with 1985 Decree. And Soviet Union gave a permission to this country to produce limited number of orders to give to these people. Soviet Union provided this country with the image of the order's obverse, but reverse was made in according with national traditions. Also Soviet Union printed special orderbooks for foreign recipients. To support my hypotesis I can show you the image of non-standart order booklet to GPW Type 3. If you compare the text - it is really different from regular ones. Even though it was issued to Russian person, same documents could be issued for foreigners. This is just a theory. So far I have no facts to proove it.

Do you mean they just sewed the order to the uniform?

I don't know... For regular Soviet GPW you have to make only one hole in the uniform. But for this badge you have to make two holes...

Tavrin's real name was Petr Ivanovich Shilo, former criminal man. Lidiya Shilova in real life was Lidiya Bobrik. German Intillegence made fake IDs with fake names, fake ranks and positions.

Maybe out of topic but still might be interesting for people who love WWII history. On dark night September 5th, 1944 German cargo plane landed deep behind Soviet lines near Smolensk region. It delivered two terrorists - man and woman (former Soviet citizens who were on Nazi service) with a mission to get to Moskow and kill Stalin. They were equipped wit a secret weapon "Panzerknakke" (not sure about correct spelling). It was a kind of mini-rocket launcer hidden in suit's sleeves. They were provided with a motorcycle to get to Moskow and well-done documents. According with the documents this man was Major Tavrin - Deputy Commander of "SMERSH" Department of 39th Army (1st Baltic front). Lady had a documents of Jr. Lieutenant Lidiya Shilova - Secretary of "SMERSH" Department of 39th Army. German famous terrorist Otto Scortseni personally gave instructions to those guys. Most interesting part - Major Tavrin was decorated with HSU Gold Star medal and some other orders (including Nevsky). In his luggage he even had a fake newspaper PRAVDA printed in Germany with a fake Decree of his HSU title. His Gold Star of course was real and belonged to Major-General Shepetov, former commander of 14th Guards Division who was killed on May 25, 1942 near Kharkov.

We getting closer!!! Thanks George

Dolf, I've heard about "German Intelligence Replicas" many times. But I don't know what was the reason to make them. Hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and officers were captured by German troops in 1941-43. Many of them were captured with their awards. Also real Soviet awards were available from dead bodies on the battlefields. So why make fake Soviet awards when you can use real ones? But I agree that pin style and mintmark look somewhat German-made. Could it be post-war replica?

Dolf, third picture was too big to be posted, so I resized it in Photoshop. About mintmark I have no idea. I'm not a specialist in German awards...

Four.

Three.

Two.

Scans of this strange GPW. One.

I think we should determine the reason why this order was made. If it was made to fool other people (collectors), than we have to call it "fake". If it was made for theatres, movie performance or to replace own lost award, than we have to apply the word "copy". As long as we don't know what is was made for, I think we can call it "replica". In any case this is not an official production of Russian Mint. I have some better pictures at home (I'm on my job now). I can post them in the evening if anyone interested. It first appeared on the market about 5 years ago and we had a long discussion with Alex Filer and other fellow collectors about what it actually was... But we didn't come to any conclusion...