GC*

That is what I meant! Awesome!

Thanks Segreant for sharing these amazing pieces!

Sergeant, thanks for your comment!

I hope I will be soon able to enrich my Reichsbanner collection with the cloth kokarde.

Here I attach a photo of the only other Reichsbanner item I have, a membership pin, definitely not that rare.

I have seen many Reichsbanner items which were far more interesting..different types of belt buckles, flags, flag tips, armbands..

I would be very interested in seeing your collection!

Regards,

GC

Hans Beimler was a famous German communist who fought during the Spanish Civil War.

He actually died during a fight and the 11th International Brigade was named after him in the end of 1936.

I am no expert of Cuban militaria..but the cockade in the center of the embroidery is the exact copy of 1960s Soviet judicial ones (which are mainly composed as well by crossed swords behind a shield).

Regards,

GC

Anyway all these medals are definitely easy to find. I assume they are not woth faking..

Thank you Valter for your comment.

Effectively it is always so difficult (often impossible) to determin if a star sold as Yugoslav was effectively used by yugoslav forces or not..

Very interesting topic anyway!

Regards,

GC

Here the reverse. I fill provide more close-up pics of the two Reichsbanner cockades in the middle, as it is possible to read the fabric marks.

Good morning everybody dear fellow collectors!

I would like to show you and receive some comments about my collection of Weimar Republic period items.

Here you have three Reichsbanner S-R-G cockades (SPD military organization, which then joined the Eiserne Front) and two KPD stars.

I am still trying to find a quite special Reichsbanner cockade with the black eagle made of cloth (for a reasonable price...which prooved to be the real problem!).

Regards,

GC

Here the reverse.

Unfortunately three cockades have just one prong left..but since I made it to buy all of them for quite cheap prices, at least for the moment I will not try to replace them with other ones intact.

In general however the condition of all of them is quite good!

Good morning everybody dear fellow collectors!

Now that I finally found the time to organize a bit my collection I would like to start to show it, to get your impressions and comments.

I collect military hat badges and cockades from the former Soviet bloc (USSR + Warsaw Pact) and I am starting to deal in these months with Arab socialist countries militaria.

DDR hat badges are one of my biggest passions (mostly early period ones and aviation ones).

Let's start with some KVP and early black-red-yellow pieces. In addition to that, my only Kampfgruppen cockade.

I just bought another black-red-yellow round cockade (the version with the external golden ring), but it still did not arrive. I will add pictures of it as soon as I will receive it!

Regards,

GC

Here the reverse.

Good morning everybody dear fellow collectors!

Today I would like to show you one of my "crown jewels": this 1920's Soviet glass-star for civil use.

I am a collector of Soviet military hat badges and cockades, but I could honestly not resist to this star, as I find it is one of the most beautiful cockades ever produced in the USSR.

Regards,

GC

Here a ukrainian medal for the the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Ukraine from Fascist Invaders.

Interesting is the fact that the year reported is 1944, not 1945, as this medal celebrates the liberation of the Ukrainian territory from Nazi troops, not the 1945 victory of the Soviet Union.

Other medals (practically copies of the Russian ones) were issued for the celebration of the Victory Day, 9th of May (the ones for the 60th and 65th anniversary have red and orange-black ribbons [the last two colors are the St. George ones] and are based on typical Soviet symbology i.e. the orders of Victory and Glory).

Good morning Troy Tempest, the badge you bought is certainly original.

Interesting badge, even if not rare. Ukraine then went on producing medals (not badges anymore) for celebrating the liberation of Ukraine and its veterans.

Here attached you find a medal for war veterans. The monument on the medal is the famous "Rodina Mat" of Kiev, part of one of the biggest war memorial complexes in the whole former USSR.

Thanks Valter for the details about the book. It looks really interesting..and my compliments to you and Luka, really wonderful cockades!

Regards,

GC

Thank you so much Emanuel for these wonderful scans!

I was definitely not familiar with many of these variations and I find this new source I can add to my database absolutely crucial!

I actually saw some times ago a white cockade like the one on the top-right of the first page you scanned on the German ebay. It was sold for 190 euro..

Thank you very much again!

Regards

GC

Thank you very much Kevin in Deva!

The whole thing sounds much more clear now.

The "crescent" behind the star seems to perfectly fit arounf the button of a uniform or jacket.

I was so focused on trying to "fit it on a hat" that I missed the whole point at first!

Thank you

Regards,

GC

Good afternoon gentlemen.

I have just come across this very unusual 1 inch long Soviet star.

I collect Soviet hat badges since years and I have never seen such a type of star..naturally I am not even sure if the star is Soviet, as it could come from any other communist country (even if the style kind of reminds me of Soviet stars).

Any of you dear fellow collectors has any idea about what this star could be?

A hat badge, a jacket-uniform badge?

And which period? Given the many unusual elements on it I am thinking about a possible eraly period, Civil War or immediatly after..but I honestly have no clear ideas about this star. This is the reason why I find it so interesting!..

Thank you

GC

Thank you Emanuel for your very precious comment!

I am not an expert of Yugoslav hat badges although I own some. I just started to get very interested after I bought the other badge you commented about and some elements brought me to think that also this could have been a WWII Yugoslav badge.

But no, as you said..no luck this time!

One last question, any idea about the period-nature of this replica?

I know many Yugoslav partisan movies and I saw a very interesting documentary (Cinema Komunisto - http://www.cinemakomunisto.com/ ) about the Yugoslav war cinema..as far as I know huge lots of materials were prepared for these movies and this cockade might be one of them.

Is this option plausible or you think that the star is a modern replica made for..inexperienced buyers?

Luckily this star was part of a big lot that I got for cheap and before my recent researches I was unsure about what that star was..so no (excessive) sadness.

Thank you

Regards,

GC

Thank you for your comment Emanuel.

So the hat badge was used by the Yogoslavian forces in the transition period between the National Liberation Army and the official JNA, am I right?

I am happy that my intuition when I saw this badge was right!

You are right Gordon! And also Poland should definitely be explored in these terms. Legnica must be a very interesting place, even if I am not sure about what remains of the former Soviet Airbase (there is even a Polish movie about it, Mala Moskva - not bad one).

But, sitcking to Germany, this is the book I was talking about; interesting text, however in German and many wonderful pictures! http://www.amazon.de...72&sr=8-2-fkmr0

Finally, forgive me for the delay, but finally I found the map of Kunmadaras airbase. Sorry for the low quality of the photo, I will upgrade my membership in the forum so that I will be able to post better pictures and better the quality of the topics I am debating with you Gentlemen. I have to say that I really found a very interesting and stimulating environment in this forum.

Anyway, here it is!

Briefly: from the bottom of the map, you will find a orizontal road and near to it a black line which stands for the pailway tracks (as you can notice there was a separate piece of railroads which entered directly into the base - that part is now completely abandoned). There are two entrances, the first was closed (I think permanently), while at the second one we met the keeper.

From there, going up, on the right we find the blocks and all the other main non-military structures (gymnasium, school, hospital, theatre etc). Returning at the antrance, if we go straight we find the airport facilities and right on the left of the main road the first hangars appear. As you can see most of the remaining structures are hangars.

The keeper explained us that fighters were kept in the hangars near to the entrance, while bombers more up, in bigger hangars I unfortunately did not have the time to reach.

Regards,

GC

Thank you for your comment Wild Car.

Paul, if it would be up to me I would probably be still there, passing every room of every house, documenting with my camera all those places and trying to find something to save a preserve.

I will be back for short in Budapest on the 7th of March, but I do not think I will have the chance to reach Kunmadaras. Maybe I will pay a second visit to Kiskunlachasa. I am anyway planning a second visit to Hungary entirely devoted to various vists to former Soviet bases.

However, I will spend at least 3 weeks of March in Berlin and since I recently bought a very interesting photographic book about the demobilization of the Soviet Army in former DDR, I will maybe try to find some interesting places to visit also there!

Regards,

GC

Gordon, if you will have the chance in the future it would be definitely worth to pay a visit to those military bases.

The photos I linked are from a gallery I found on the internet, but since I did not share anywhere on the web my own photos I chose that gallery because, as you noticed, it gives a very clear picture of the base itself.

In some time I will share online my photos, taken in a gloomy winter day, which added to the already existing atmoshpere something magic and at the same time scary (it makes a sinister effect the big wooden cross which has been erected on the raceways used by riders, where one of them died some years ago..).

I will surely find tomorrow the map of the base and it will make things even more clear (I myself had some problems in orienting myself in the base, even having a map of it in my hands!).

I had the chance to read the book you are talking about even if unfortunately I don't own it personally. Definitely an interesting source of informations.

Paul, I actually found the USSR CoA and the Airforce symbols on the ground, in the ground floor of a building near the take-off strip. The image is painted on a thick and paperboard and together in the same place, all piled up together, there were others.

I clearly remember there was one I even took a picture of which was a CPSU Congress propaganda one.

The original one from which the pieces I took were part of was a little bit bigger, but damaged and it prooved impossible to move it without damaging it (the USSR CoA presents also intentional damages: right in the middle of the globe there is the clear sign of a fist or a kick which broke the paperboard). All the others were already damaged and broken. I luckily made it to preserve basically all the painted parts of the one I decided to "save".

Of course also now the pieces I got are very fragile. After bringing them home to Budapest I cleaned them from the dust they got in the last 20 years as careful as I could, so I would not damage the colours, but the whole thing is so fragile..

Bringing it back home in Italy meant packing them with all the due care and checking them as baggage on my flight.

Now I brought them to a framer-restorer which is giving me some suggestions about how to take care of them. The basic idea would be to additionally clean them and maybe rub their surface with some special oil that would help preserving the integrtity of the colours, finally framing them behind a solid glass that would allow me to hang them on a wall and at the same time be sure that nothing but the time-passing could damage them.

The sad thing is that even there were I found these paperboards there were others that would have been worth to be brought away (even if far less intact), but went to the base by train and then..on foot! And had to carry with me the paperboards for all the going back trip, which rppoved far more demanding than what I thought. Unfortunately the building were I found the paperboards was way too near to places where during the races people definitely go; I even saw some kind of sweepers doing something near there..and the sad thing is that such things, if found, would be very probably destroyed and thrown away as garbage. The way they were pilled up and the presence of quite clear footprints on the ground even suggested me that somebody already prepared them to be removed and destroyed. If they would have been in the "heart" of the forgotten zone, somwehere in a basement, I would have felt sure that nobody would have touched them.

Anyway, I did put all my effort in preserving at least something of what was there. I clearly felt that if I would have come back some time after, maybe better organized, I could have not found the paperboards there anymore.

Regards,

GC

Gordon, I just posted some pictures of my findings in the Soviet area of the forum. Your comments would be very appreciated!

Thanks.

Regards

GC

Moreover, here some information about the bases I visited and others, http://www.mil-airfields.de/hu/list.htm, here an online gallery of photos of Kunmadaras, http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10164478 and here the site of the museum in nearby Berekfurdo, http://www.soviet-airforce.com/en_index.html.