hunyadi

Interesting... I have this sports medal from Dozsa S.E. though it looks like it may have been ground down there is no evidence that it ever said "Bastya". I think it may have been ground down during the engraving. The sporting event is dated for January of 1955. Also of note is the AVH insignia.

Very possible on all accounts. The more I collected of these items - the more I found that prototypes existed, were stored, some were sold and others ended up in the military musuem archives. I would suspect that the variant that Cimbineus was probably a prototype design in examining the style that would be eventually produced in the Kadar era, or possibly a revision prototype. Its hard to say but there seems to be hundreds of prototypes that were manufactured for the various badges and awards. However I hate to state that they must also be viewed with some aprehension as they all bear a certain murky authenticity...until the state mint divulges their design archives. In my personal collection are the suspected prototypes for the Excellent Platoon Leaders badge with the Kadar crest and the Hero of Labor or perhaps Hero of the HUPR from 1979 -

There were two differnt froms of this badge for placement on the uniform - the type that Greg has shown here and a pinback form. The pinback form has a vertical needle and clasp which is unique to the HUPR badges. This was also the latter form - probably from the early 1970's before it was disbanded. My LtCol. of the Karhatalom has this vertical pinback badge tho it is an earlier uniform.

Greg - The "Kivalo" sereis was always for exceptional work: increaed production, exceptional work ethic, etc... the "Szolgalati" is for years of service and had little to do with performance. Service medals such as these were appearing at the 10 year annaversary of the end of WWII, the military had the Meritorious Service Medal (blue enameled center with crossed PPSHs and Rakosi coat of arms) to sit in for 10 years of service as well as for exceptional serivce (allowing multiple awards of such) The civilian sector and the miltary sector were close in their thinking, but a little different in their execution of the reward.

Concering volume two - its going to take me thru this fall before I can begin working on it - the nice part about the Kadar era is that there are tons more sources of information than the Rakosi period. I regret that I cant begin working on it sooner but there is an item of family interest that has to be completed first before another book is published.

An early version will be very difficult to find esp with the parachute attached. I recently scoured my sources and no one has one for sale. There was one at auction last year and it fetched a pretty penny in the tune of (if I recall correctly - dont have the auction book in hand) 300 euro

I will second Dan's opinion - Zsolt is a great guy to deal with. He has just about anything you may need. On Ebay he is "chroma2002" & his store is http://stores.ebay.com/Hungarian-Medals-Store If you dont already have a copy - I will also shamelessly plug that you buy one of my books on the History and Militaria of the HUPR (in English) :whistle:

Once again - thanks! I posted this on another forum and got only a response on the badge as being for the Galvenas Artillery Warehouse. if this is true it certainly fits with the branch of service piping. In my best guess - the branch would be the equivalent of the Service of Supply as used by the US in World War One - which included train, ordinance, maintenacne, quartermaster, etc... Still baffled by the lack of any collar tabs and wish there was enough of a ghost to see what the device on the boards was... anyone got any way to help me get parts for this to restore it? :unsure:

Hi Iffig - thanks for the information! However can you explain the word "Etappentruppe" I am guessing that its "infantry" or??? Many thanks!!!

No-body??? :unsure:

lastly the badge

reverse

shoulder board and collar

Hello - Just recently found this on Ebay and could not pass it up. I believe that this is a inter-war period tunic. But I am not certain and I am asking help in identifying both the originality and the period. Looking at period photographs of the 1920's this seems correct - however this particular tunic lacks any of the collar litzen or tabs - looking at the material on the collar it seems that it never had any. There are marks on the shoulder boards where something was attached at one point - in a photograph that I saw it was a letter "D"?? Buttons on the tunic appear to be original and have the three star design with the wreath etc... for Latvia. So... 1) What period is the tunic from? 2) Is it infantry or artillery or other branch? 3) Why has it never had any collar tabs? 4) What unit is the badge from.

Very nice documents - I like the police document - not something that is encountered often.

The medal does represent a darker time of Hungarian history where politics were executed with murder and torture. As for the asthetic appeal its quite Soviet Utopian - but it goes back to the earlier experiments with the art theory of the early 1920's - a nice way to commemorate the event even though the ideal of the late 1950's would have been more of the type you see with East German medals. Its interesting to see the Toth L signatute and now I have to go and look trough my own collection of these to see if I have a variant - oh how i miss the days of just randomly buying them...

Yes Greg you are correct the badges without the crossed rifles are for the Border Guard and the AVH.

Hi Greg - This one was instituted in 1968 and the mini si the correct style.

There have been two on Ebay in the last few years.... but they went for more than I want to pay for one.... Collect Russia had / has some if I recall...

To my knowledge the case as showin in post #5 is the style for the flood medal during the time of the HUPR.

Bakelite is easy to identify. If you dip it in very hot water it will emit a very distinctive smell. Porcelan will not. It will not harm the bakelite at all. Though to be cautious it may affect the glue that holds it together. So be careful.

Very nice finds! There are some real gems in there Rick! I love the floral pattern scuff plates. Not seen to often. Now you need 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st classes - :unsure:

It does seem odd - but life even in hell does go on I guess... its amazing to me to have a WW2 Hungarian tunic that was converted to post war M45 style with a makers tag of being delivered to the Quartermaster in Budapest just two days before the city fell... it does boggle the mind that there were still workers making dress tunics to deliver to the QM in a completely surrounded city. So in that mindset I guess it was worhtwhile to cross out names on a ranklist while B-24s were hammering your homeland...

Not a problem!

Sergey - I think you win the GMIC award for the coolest thing in your collection... fantastic work!