new world

You bet! During years of collecting Yugoslavian awards I've seen plenty of stars for sale (all classes), but just couple of documents. If you find any - I suggest you keep them. William

It's common practice in Russia for some vet's families to sell the awards and then claim they were stolen. I've heard stories when same awards were sold several times by the family William

I've never seen a booklet. I assume there wasn't any special booklet issued, just Academy diploma. I am curious as how big was the graduating class at the Academy? The highest SN in this thread is 231, I would guess the size of the class was capped at 250-300 officers? William

Reverse of 1950 badge, serial number 103. William

Another one I saw for sale, from 1950.

Nice to see happy ending to the story. BTW, a book registry of stolen awards was just published in Russia. Kuznetsov's awards with serial numbers were mentioned in the book as well. Could this be one of the factors contributing to their recovery? William

Throughout Russian history we observe figures that are both great and tragic. We see man and women contributed enourmously to development of Russia, but their achievements are often shadowed by the cost, especially human cost. Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine II, Lenin, Stalin - these all are great leaders of Russia. Take Peter and Stalin - both managed to transform Russia from a backyard of Europe into major world power. Yes, there were sacrifices - think of thousands of laborers who died while building city of Petersburg in the swamps of Neva. Think of even more laborers who vanished on Stalin's projects. No one denies there were shocking and tragic losses. But one needs to keep in mind the realities of the period. Just think about it - Soviet Russian managed to achieve in 10-20 years what took the rest of the world centuries. He also was at helm of Russian when fighting in WWII. From this prospective Stalin can be viewed as great leader. William

Stamp for Khmelnitsky looks weird. Plus, order of Khmelnitsky to a Sergeant? William

front

Polar Star with low SN 96, just sold to a collector in Russia.

Entries for Khmelnitsky 3 cl and Red Banner do not belong to this order book. William

And to finish on a funny note - these were custom made: Master of Sports in Litrebol

Three badges: - Honored Coach - two badges Distinguished (Zasluzheniy) Master of Sports After the fall of USSR some former republics adopted their own Master of Sports titles (ie Russian Federation, Ukraine, Georgia). They still exist today.

2 badges: - Master of Sports of International Level (Maser Sporta Mezhdunarodnogo Klassa) - Honored Master of Sports

Some images found on the web: two Master of Sports badges and Kandidate of Master of Sports

"Master of Sports" was very special designation during Soviet times. Basically the title was given for conisistantly achieving certaing performance results (ie run 100 meters in XX seconds). Athletes who were bestowed such title proudly wore their badges! In addition to "Master of Sports", there were related titles: 1) Candidate Master of Sports (one level below Master) 2) Master of Sports 3) Distinguished (Zasluzheniy) Master of Sports 4) Master of Sports of International Level (Maser Sporta Mezhdunarodnogo Klassa) Distunguished and International Masters were given to the medal winners of international competitions. There were aslo designations for the coaches of accomplished athletes. I have a badge for "Honored Coach" somewhere. Hope this helps, William

Any luck with the research for these awards? William

Other things / collecting fields also suffer from fakes and unethical sellers...

front of sn 8888

Common Polar Star, but with very interesting serial number - 8888!

Dave, Also, if you compare serial numbers of the books from your web site and xerox copy - they are almost exactly the SAME digits, just shuffled around. Amazing what Photoshop can do. William

The one at Nota Bene apparently has some enamel restoration...

Ouch! What's next - Sukhe-Bator for $5,000? William

Reverse William

Another Academy badge from 1948, serial numbered 171