Mondvor

This is the best book about Soviet Awards that has ever been published in English. Yours to discover

Revers of that RB is a conversion from a regular suspension order in s/n range appr. 120.000 - 180.000. Fake makers cut-off the ring on the top of the order, than they soldered fake screwpost and changed serial number. Mintmark looks real to me. To be 100% sure high-quality images are necessary...

No problem, I'll try to do my best.

It might be funny (or stupid), but in my passport my name indicated as Andriy. This is Ukrainian transcription. Even though my whole family and all my friends speak Russian, in official papers we have Ukrainian spelling since 1991.

My real name is Andrew or Andrei in Russian. I should agree that using a pseudonim could cause some difficulties. But as long as I can see many people on the Forum use pseudonims as well

Thanks a lot for amazing documents! BTW, who is Alex?

Hi stogieman, Excellent group, my congratulations. It's really hard to find mirror reverse RB in such a wonderful condition. Especially with a document. I've seen this group on Markov's website. Could you post his award citation card?

There was no cap badges in military uniform during 1917 October Revolution. The only element of Communist uniform was red ribbon sewed on the coat or on the hat. First more or less regular uniform for Red Army appeared during Civil War in 1919-21. They did have cap badges, however they were different. They displayed hammer and plow instead of hummer and sickle.

This is WW II cap badge. Brass hammer and sickle from that badge was often used to replace missing detail from GPW order (golden hammer and sickle).

What can I say? It's just beautiful. Escpecially considering the price

We have the same place in Kiev. Special street in a historical part of the city were lots of foreign tourists walking around. And the prices are 4 to 5 folds from regular For the display boxes I would say they are either belong to Paretsky or Gruzlak. I don't know other German dealers who are still on the market. Am I right?

High prices could be understandable for unique and rare orders. But not for the regular medals that shown on the pictures. I'm visiting Kiev, Ukraine every summer. This is the main marketplace on the area of former USSR and all prices are created there. But regular medals are still cost nothing in Kiev. You can by 50 year Army jubilee medal for 3 USD in Kiev. BTW you can buy it for 5 USD even on EBay. So what is the reason to put the label with 15 EUR on the medal? This is only for the stupid tourists who don't know real prices and buy Soviet awards as a souvenirs. Once again - all you said holds true for RARE orders - small BHs, triangles RBLs, GOZNAK RSs, non-riveted Lenins, some "polkovorets" orders of 1st and 2nd class. But not for this garbage shown on the picture. For some things like 3rtd class Hm or Nahimov medal prices even going down slowly, because supply is exceeds demand.

Those people must be crazy. 15 EUR for a 50-years Soviet Army jubilee medal? 95 EUR for regular second type GPW 2nd class? Well, it's their own business. I can only wish them good luck in looking for some fool who would pay that much

Hi Jan, Of course you can try to do the research. Most likely this award was given for so-called "winter war" betwen Soviet Union and Finland in 1939-40. But all you can find is the name of the recipient ant sometimes his rank. There is a complete lists of pre-war awards recipients (those lists are separate for each award). My friend has a complete list of mirror-reversed Red Banners and about 90% complete list of early Red Stars (before 10.000). Some other people have lists of BH and RBL. But it was common that for pre-war awards no citations were filled. At least I didn't see any of them. All early awards were given in Kremlin only and in most cases the person who actually gave the award to recipient was Kalinin (one of the leaders of Communist Government). So it would be really hard to get a description of the merits for that Red Star. Could you share the images of your Red Star with us?

There are two reasons for this particular number range. First. The numbers prior to 23.000 could be issued before WW II. So you would not find any citations for them. No citation - no story Second. The numbers lower than 23.000 are not very common and it's hard to find them. Also the prices are higher (we are not talking about riveted Stars that were issued mostly in Noveber 1941 - January 1942, because this is very different story, that's all just about regular screwpost base Stars).

Yep... Looks similar. Is it another group for political officer?

The order that was issued more than 400.000 times should cost as a price for the metal plus 15 to 20 percent depending on the condition and serial number. If it comes with a paper than you can add up to 40 percent. This is just my opinion.

Thanks Doug, Now I can see that order is OK. The outline of the digit is thick. On the initial picture it looked different probably because of light reflection from enamel surface.

Hi Doug, Here is the picture of two Red Banners ## 932 and 1220. Just to illustrate my words about "fat" digit on the shield. The shields on those RBs look little bit different from your order. That's why I asked if you have better pictures. If you have them for 8 or 10 years is OK. But 90% of all fakes came to US between 1992 and 1998.

To Digger Doug, Could you show the reverses of those Red Banners? Especially #4. Obverse pictures are small and unclear, but the digit on the shield of RB#4 looks kind of "skinny". On war-time awards it was much more "fat". Maybe it is just wrong impression because of the light, reflected from enamel. But still it is interesting to see smaller details of obverse and reverse.

This medal is 100% real. About the documents - there are at least 5 types of documents for that medal. One is posted above by Dave. It has a signature of Minister of Defence. The other types have signatures of Minister of Internal Affairs (MVD), Chairman of State Security Committee (KGB), Secretary of Supreme Soviet of USSR and most common type for non-VIP persons (posted below)

Rick, I do not remember about the end of his career. I'll check his papers tonight.

Well, that is a great question! I've seen hundreds of citations and must say that it is extremely difficult to find an award with a really interesting story behind. You can try to research something like Great Patriotic War (as Rick mentioned above) because it is non-long service award and was given mostly for combat heroism. But there is always a chance to get something like Mech's GPW (for successful trading in local military store) or like Rodionov's two GPWs (given for the same events of providing Communist propaganda among other political officers). Both groups are described in this forum and you can see them by yourself. Order of Glory and Bravery medal are more reliable choices, I totally agree with Rick and Dave. But it is more about early numbers. I've seen many 1945-issued Glories and Braveries, that were given for something like "good conduct" or for being in Red Army since 1941 and wounded couple of times. Also I've seen some Glories given to personal drivers of high-ranking officers and to other people who were closely related to Division Headquarters. In my opinion it is always interesting to research ANY of early award from 1941-42 period. In most cases there is a true feat behind them. Red Banners in s/n range 16.000 - 30.000, Red Stars from 23.000 to 100.000 numbers, Otvaga and MM medals from 25.000 to 100.000. Those might be really cool. Not many people were awarded prior to 1943 because Read Army mostly retreated and there was no reasons to give awards. Except for REAL heroism. That is only my private opinion, I might be wrong

Really cool citation. We should keep in mind that during 1941 Red Army mostly retreated. But here we have an example of successful advance operation. Great! Do you have a pictures of Red Banner?

One more paper from personal file. Not related to previous one, but still interesting. This is also a certification for another HSU pilot - Lt. Colonel Gultyaev. At the moment of certification he was holding a position of the Head of Command Center of 145th Fighter Air Division. Certification describes an event when Lt. Colonel Gultyaev left his Command Center (the only remaining person in the Command Center was some Private) and together with other officers went to the cinema (I highlighted this with red line). Pretty funny, huh?