Alfred

Great, keep this one in honour. regards Andreas

Nice group, I hope you have the complete group. regards Andreas

Profit makes the world go around ! They look cast. I think they cast dem with serial number, as the number looks equal on all pices. So mass production for little money. I think in most cases they sell them with bad pictures of the front side. It looks not so bad as reverse. And some beginners could easyly fooled. regards Andreas

and here is the front of the faked Red Star

Here are three Red Stars with same serial numbers sold as copies. regards Andreas

I like both medals. Yes, they are faked. There is nearly nothing which is not faked yet. Also there are now complete faked Red Stars with high serial numbers on ebay. KDVR, here is a comparision between a faked one and an original. The leaves are missing details and there are some other defects. regards Andreas

For a bravery medal, the soldier got 5 roubles per month after the war as a pension. At some point the working people of the soviet union voluntary resign in the beginning 50?s to get a pension. With other words, the state was not longer able to pay the pension due to financial problems. The awarded person got a separate coupon book with the entries that he got his 5 roubles. regards Andreas

No, I am not speaking about the young seller. You are right the young seller next the restaurant (2) had only fakes / copy?s. There were another stand with three seller/persons (1). A younger little man and one older person around 60 years. There I bought the group. regards Andreas

Thank Rick for your interesting reply. Research is ordered. Lets see what comes out. All is possible. OGPW 151.585 - 38. Army OGPW 151.852 - awarded 04/1946 Red Star 1.845.186 - awawded 08/1945 MM-medal 2.910.186 - awarded 11/1944 Long Service Looks like the MM-medal is for long service. best regards Andreas ------------------------------

Great and very complete research with picture of the soldier. nice little group regards Andreasd

The Medal for Distinguished Service in Protecting the Public Order looks good to me. Looks like a silver plated version. (Variation 3) But picture from an 90 / 180 degree angle are better. Also a big picture of the globe with hammer and sickle is helpful. Also the weight of the medal is interesting. Some very good fakes have a different weight as the originals. The weight should be in this range: 16 + 1 Gramm . And the ring of the medal is also sometimes a good indicator to recognise fakes. best regrads Andreas example:

Yes , it is possible that some early good fakes maybe made from the mint (Red Banner 8, 9 ..) or from personel who worked for the mint. A few month ago I also hold a city medal with wrong reverse in my hand and it was also bought in the very early 90?s and the quality was good. I saw no difference in the reverse to a regular medal. regards Andreas

I like them.

KDVR, the Belgrad medal has a wrong reverse. The date 13.02.1945 is from the Budapest medal. The Belgrad medal schows the date 20.10.1944. A longer time ago, there was a discussion if medals with wrong dates exist (mint errors) or if they are later restrikes of the mint/fakes. I am not totally sure how the discussion ended, but if I remember right these medals with wrong reverse were not original. On the Mondvor webpage they removed this medal types a longer time ago. regards Andreas

Yes you are right, there were mostly guns/daggers and equipment. There were only a few low level soviet awards (Red Star, Red Banner of Labour and a few medals) available and they were overpriced. Red Banner of Labour for 100 Euro and Red Star for 80 Euro. One vendor from the Baltic States had a few interesting genuine soviet dagger and Schaschkas, but in my oppinion very expensive. Schaschka was about 1.000 Euro and he had an navy officer dagger without catch button from 1945 for also 1.000 Euro. I didn?t ask for the price of the diplomatic dagger. Except for one seller from Germany who quite collecting and sold parts of his collection there were only a few soviet medals. But this seller had many fakes. This group was the best he had. Nearly all his rarer awards were in my oppinion fakes.

and his name. looks like: Drugov Aleksei Wladimirowitsch

and the award book.

and reverse

This one crossed at the weekend in Ciney (Belgium) my way and I couldn?t resist. An OGPW 1st class with MZPP Red Star and a military merit medal (possible long service). OGPW - 151.983 REd Star - 1.845.916 Military Merit - 2.910.808 regards Andreas

and reverse of the OGPW

and the OGPW

reverse and the seamless ring

and the awards

and the name of the soldier.

This group crossed a few weeks ago my way on ebay. I am not totally convinced about the originality of the group, but the price was good. So it is no loss if the group belongs not together. What concers me is, that the ink used for writing the name and the serial number of the awards is different and that the ribbon is wrong. Not a totally give away. The awards are in the right order of appearance entered in the book and there are no sign that old serial numbers are bleeched out. The awards itself are okay. The Bravery medal is a uncommon sub-variation with seamless, solid ring construction of the eyelet. Only found in the serial number range 2,420,000 to 2,540,000. The ribbon for the military merit medal is a bleched out ribbon of a distinguished labour medal, on reverse you can see the orignal colour. The soldiers name seem to be Medschenko. Any comments are welcome. best regards Andreas