hunyadi

"Tabori Barna" or Camp Brown.... Here is a shot of my Csendor tunic in the same color...

Lilo - here is what I can determine that he was awarded: He was give the "Magyar Eremrend Nagykerestje" Or in English "Hungarian Order of Merit, Grand Cross" - this particular grade the "1st class" was awarded with a breast star. Below is a scan of the 1939 version of the award from the book "Nagy Magyar Kitunteteskonyv" - I dont have a pre war scan of one.

I am going to attempt to answer these questions. This is not a WW1 award the A-H Kingdom was disbanded after WW1. In 1922 the new Royal Hungarian state came into existnace and Regent Admiral Miklos Horthy established new orders and decorations to be awarded for merits. The term Order and Cross are more of a translation issue than most as the term is used in the full Hungarian descrition of each award. The problem resides in what constitued the "First Class" - is it the Grand Cross, Commanders Cross, Officers Cross, etc... if you had a photo of Lord Powel with this award that would help... The term Civil Division - is another translation problem. All of the Orders of Merit were awarded with a specific ribbon. Full green was awarded to civilians, Green with red and white edges was for a military award during peace time and a red center with green and white edges was for military during times of war. Swords were added to the cross forms to desiognate service in a combat zone - what constituted a combat zone... well... So - to sum up: 1) yep - pretty close 2) civiliain form 3) full green in color

Paul - these are outright reproductions - the dies survived the war and peolpe learned how to make some money with them, there are some differences in the subtle details that are easy to spot - but the engraved blade witht the anodized coat of arms etc... was never ever used nor authorized. So many of these have engraved names in them - this is also just pure fantasy - but for some reason - people bid over $700 at times for one of these - I could buy them for about $50 from a knife shop in a mini mall in Budapest... Its criminal....

Here is a shot of the interior

I purchased this several years ago from the WAF - all comments back then on it pointed to an orignial piece - however I still seek opinions for clarification. It was originaly described as a HJ Flak helpers tunic - hence the red chords on the shoulder boards (but these can be slipped on). It has what appears to be a genuine WH Volkstrum arm band - OK sounds reasonable. And a set of loops which seem to fit a flak badge. The buttons are the pebbled type with makers marks on the reverse. But what bothers me is that so far I have not seen any period photographs with this type of button down tunic. There are no RZM tags in it. Is this perhaps a custom made tunic - a childs jacket that was converted into a battle tunic? Or?? Please give me your opinions.

I hate - despise and generaly dread these types of threads - but here I go and begin a folly of misadventure: http://cgi.ebay.com/Old-Hungarian-Air-Forc...A1%7C240%3A1318 Why do people bid so high on these??? Any Idea why? :banger:

Not much that I can add here - I have a "retirement box" in which the owner mounted the Duna river practice in 1985, but these are just what they are - simple trinkets that were handed out to the soldiers who participated in the events.

Interesting pieces - I think the smaller one is a cpa badge - but without ever seeing a cap (except haning on the coat rack in my photo) its hard to say. The larger one looks to be from the belt buckle - but agian not sure. Keep hunting the flea markets and a booklet may turn up... When I found the SZIT booklet and the few other items - I had no idea how little survived from these organizations. Kids move on an upwards and most of the items are in Hungarian land fills I am sure...

Let me see when I can find that medal...

Post 24: Is there an inscription on the back? Mine - cant find it right now - was an award in 1955 for a sporting event with the MT. I think these were produced for awards within the organization. Post 25: This is for another of the obscure organizations wich from what I can tell was the Engineering / Architecture organization. The only information was a plack in the display of the "Junk Shop" about a year ago. The plack was from an engineering and architectural school in Sopron (? if memory has not faded too much). Re photo: when I first got it I thought that it too was a SZIT photo - but then when I found an MT belt buckle I was able to confirm that it was not SZIT but indeed MT.

The minis I ahve never seen worn in any form of clothing...Since being in the Interior Ministry tended to have a negative impression among the general populace it was not very popular to say "here I am, I make sure you dont have freedom of travel to the West...". As for the cases - these are from the late 1970's. I think many of these have surfaced with the plastic cases as the mint sold off New Old Sotck in the 1990's. I am happy to point out that your example for the full sized one is an early example...

Here is an image of first year gals in the program. I believe the photo to be from about 1954

That propoganda image threw me for some time as well. She is actually a member of the MT or "Magyar Talulo" (Hungarian Learners?). Blue collar tabs apear to be for rail, red for heavy industry, wine red for logistics, etc.... I have a belt buckle, cap badge and collar tab of these uniforms - how I wish I had a uniform... this is a single collar tab that I have for the logisitcs branch. This organization was similar to SZIT in that it was charged with educating and indoctrinating the young men and women who were slated for trades. Each band on the collar tab indicated a year of study. This is my logistics branch / trade learning for one year of study.

These cap badges for the River Flotilla were post 1957 as prior to that they used the standard HUPR crest.

Well it appears that he is not a civil military driver. He may be postal, but I am not sure. He could even be from some obsucre unit. I picked up a cap with HUPR buttons on it, dark blue with red trim a cap badge wich depicted a bridge with water and red star. It seems that this particular cap was worn by men who guarded the bridges... so there are some pretty obscure things out there. I wonder if we can get a better close up on the cap and the ollar tabs???

yes - very interesting - he may be - a civilian contractor to drive military vehicles or more likely he is Postal. I have to check my reference material - not with me at work right now...

That is a very interesting photo - the Excelent Soldier badge is clearly the "skeleton" form of the badge and the grouping location in unique. As for the tank badges - some threads ago we did touch on the Soviet style ones as these are pinback as Rick mentioned. The second photo is also interesting as it is a group of soldiers from the Interior Ministry of the Border Guard. Yes - Verdun 16 does have some very nice items - I hope he will share more of his gems in the future! :jumping:

To my understanding these were awarded to members who were in a trade aprentice program or to one working as a journeyman... I also know of one that was awarded to a gal who got a "5" (A+ for those of us in the USA) on her Russian exam while in 9th grade in 1986....so apparently there was some loose interpretation of who and for what they could get one.

Hi Ed - 1) Excelent Worker in Agriculture 2) Excelent (Scrap) Metal Collector - in the 1950's as there was a surplus of foundries, but a massive deficit of raw materials they started a program to award badges to those who were savy enough to go around the countryside and collect scrap metal. It was a geat way to get rid of all those Hitlerite machines of war that were junking up the countryside. 3) 1980's era Excelent Youth Profesional (Worker)

Well - since banging my head againt the wall till I bleed for missing out on this opportunity.. I thought that I would add my little part about the Brotherhood medal. The one that Gordon posted is actualy for the 3rd Class. I was lucky one day in getting this cased and documented 1st Class, probably to a Polish officer or civilian... http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=25585

As AH forces used the trifold ribbons on all awards a rather simple system was employed for the dress uniforms (which all too often were sometimes even field uniforms for the officers...) by simply sewing a series of straight loops along the uppr chest you could hang your full medlas without having to use a medal bar OR you could simply use these snaped ribbons to afix to the ribbon loops for a similar "smart" look

Yes - this one was one of the more rare to be awarded. It was primarily an award for those who had remained faithful to the cause of the Hungarian Communist Party (Later the Hungarian Workers Party) durung the years of trubulation in WW2, the "White Terror", etc... it guaranteed a massive bonus to ones pension along with a guarantee of housing and other benfits

Yes! Happy New Year to all and to a new year of finding these obscure treasures! :jumping:

No - it would be good to get a database of any that we come across, thereby making note of what the highest number encountered is, how many of the various types we can find, etc... I was merely stating that it should not get into the current day market prices, etc...if so interested to discuss the collecting of Hungarian vs. Soviet due to prices or something like that we should start a separate thread. But - keep posting the answer to the mystery of how many were actually made is out there!