hunyadi

In one of my conversations with an old retired Airforce officer from the 1950's he related to me that during the Korean War several officers and ground crew did go to North Korea to observe the air war and then later came back and spoke of what they had observed in some of the classrooms. If they actaully engaged UN forces in aerial combat is unknown. He related that the contingent was no more than about 100 personel. To my knowledge there was never anything published about the event or the group.

Reverse - the item is clearly of Soviet manufacture - it is numbered 44,076. The case and the interior are clearly Hungarian - so how would he have gotten it... :whistle:

And then it gets opened up... :jumping:

And notice the bottom scuff plate... seen very commonly on Hungarian cases before 1956.

The interesting question is this little box which was found with the grouping from someone who had obviously pulled it out of the estate - probably on the day the family threw it away... too common, even today... Notice the features...

As Dan's recent purchase of a foreign table medal made some questions about a "Hungarian" box I thought I would add a little grouping that I found several years ago to further pose the question. This is the grouping of a Major in the mid to late 1960's. Branch of service is not known, but I do assume that it may be Air Force. Until the vaults are opened - one will know for certain. The grouping is "mundane" and "common" for a young man who was commissioned as a 2nd Lt at the end of his training in September of 1950. He was certainly a "riser" and probably made Lt Col or Col before he retired.

This is nothing new... my grandfather was given a brand new crisp $1000 bill when he was shipped off to the Pacific to fight in India during WW2. It had the experess orders to use it go "buy your way out of trouble" or to "influence" the locals to the Allied cause. The nice part was that he was not required to give it back if it was not used. The bad part as they learned later the British did not pay the local Indians enough and the Japanese paid handsomly for support along with the idea that the British and the newly arrived Americans would go away once the Japanese won the war...Tribute and paying off the enemy to not kill you goes back to the earliest days of war... but with the impending decline fo the Dollar which will more than likely be followed by the Pound and the Euro, pay them in Asian currencies or Gold to get a lasting peace. :cheers:

Yep - I got him Sanyi's contact info :whistle:

As always - neat stuff! The most interesting, just becasue it is not so commonly encountered is the formal document for the 1959 medal commemorating the 40th annaversary of the ill fated 1919 Hungarian Soviet Rupublic. Have not encountered too many of the formal documents and the signatures are probably autopen variety - but what makes this more interesting is that it was awarded to a woman. Her name is also interesting - "Marischka, Zoltanak" - or the wife of Zoltan Marischka. Very slav last name. Anyhow - rare document to begin with and men get more medals than women even in the "utopian societies" so its a rare"er" bird... :jumping:

Dont get too lost or confused. The main difference is Erdemerem = medal, decoration, etc... (#'s [612 as well] 613, 614) Erdemrend = is order. In 1964 they changed the item in question to the status of an "order" rather than the "medal" - this was primarily done as in 1964 they started to issue the "Service Medal" (for specific years of service) Perhaps what is most interesting about this new example you have shown is that it is not necessarily a 1964 piece - but rather an anomaly! This shows that there must have been some pieces that were made somewhere in the late 1950's where the backing for the PPsH's were reinforced but no rivet was used yet. This is very interesting as in all of my collection I have yet to find one that was made in such a manner! You have a very interesting variant from the 1957-1959 period! Somewhere around the 1980's I believe there was another variant which has a reverse such as this one I show below:

Heaven forbid if someone writes a book about these medals????/ Then where would the price go.... :whistle:

and the chances of finding an original tunic of these??? :whistle:

I dont think this is Hungarian -

Brewster Buffalo - not exactly a performer like the FW - this is certainly not Hungarian... but I would lean towards the Estonian with the triangle motiff. It could also be a sport plane association...

As for the book - there are only 200 copies at this point. Financially I am ruined until those can sell, if they sell and there is still an interest, I have plans on producing more. This is the beauty of electronic publishing, you simply have to wait for the printer and the binder to shell them out (about 1 month). So when they are gone - more can be made available and there would be at least a second edition. As for a second volume - the last three years of my life have been spent researching and spending a fortune on obtaining items for the publication. My plans are right now to take a year off from research and deal with settling back into life in the USA after living for nearly a decade in Hungary. I do have volumes of research and artifacts already compiled on the 1957-1990 era, so the foundation is there - dont worry. Yes this is all for education.... if it were profit - I would invest in alot of other things

Bryan - Thank you - I hope that it will help with your collecting efforts. Dont miss the monthly militaria show (1st Sat of the month) and all those flea markets! I sure do miss them... :cool:

Cimbineus - thanks for the additional information. I wonder if nayone has seen a VV or S stamped piece of material? I would assume that these would have been more rare than the AVH stamp...

Cimbineus - was this symbol used on the elementary schools only? My earlier assumption was from a medalion that I found which had the symbol in the center, but it was for an Building Engineering School? Thanks for straigtening this one out!

Thank you Rick - your short review is refreshing to know that my golas of unlocking not only the militaria of the period but also the chilling history behind them - were met. As of this post - copies are still available.

For me it's really hard to say - thre were so many variations to the spagen. I have seen devices similar to this style, but with the a different method than simply wrapping around the ribbon. Some were sewn on, others crimped on, sometimes that spange was added individualy other times in a "group" such as this. The bad part is that crafty dealers do and have known how to make aluminum and chrome spange and then added them to the ribbon for an instant profit... I would pass unless I could hold this one in my hand before opening my wallet. But that is just me...

:banger: Were these boxes official? A production by the state mint? - If so - I passed over two of these at flea markets as I thought they were simply something a worker had made.... :banger:

Theodor - Just out of curiosity? Is it more common to find the peacetime awards of the bravery? Also what is the possibility of a Captain having two 5th Class? One of them has the crown the other does not.

Dan - Very nice - you scored a very rare and complete 1969 version. This one is the only one I have seen cased and complete. :cheers:

For anyone who is interested, there is a new history and militaria reference book avaliable. Please see this thread http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=40063&st=0&gopid=370657&