Ed_Haynes

This has the general "feel" of the various "brotherhood" awards of chefs and vintners at the highest professional levels. See: http://www.omsa.org/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=866 Either that or it is a self-awarded joke.

Research will say. Guesswork may get it close, but there is no substuitute for research.

If so . . . where is that :envy: smiley . . . ????

Still, nice to see. But, if lifting (a delicate word) an illustration from a book (where someone else did the work), it would, I think, be good practice to note that. When an item if from your collection, that seems unnecessary and may be assumed. Ed

Posted by Tom Donovan on the Yahoo SAGongs discussion list:

What else to say!

I have never seen any other "star associations" other than this one. I think they were pretty much an English-only associations, at least I have never seen any trace of the organisation among the majority (Indian) veterans of Burma.

It would be worth checking to see if Miskatonic University -- oops -- Amherst University has his papers. It is always sad to see assembled research pass away out of sight.

Would LOVE to see it. Immensely rare, by the by.

No problem, mate, I know your fingerprints are not on this one. You had sinply referenced them, and they do not seem to exist online any more. Indicative? It is just that, were it a 1960s or even a 1970s publication, it would have been adequate enough, but as unfocused and incomplete and deficient and sloppy as it is for a 1990s pub from outside the country . . . grrrrr. Point being: tHe ecological niche for a good good on socialist Yugoslavian ODM is still well and truly open. If would be interesting to see what else this publisher has, but if this is a fair sample, . . . If their Albanian work is better than Eric's fine volume, I may forgive them this. "If".

Colors (colours?) would suggest the Burma National Army and Burmese State which worked under Aung San side-by-side with the Indian Natioinal Army (and their Japanese "friends") against European interests in Burma, 1941-45 (when it sniffed the air and changed sides, allowing Aung San to emerge as a credible leader in post-war independent Burma). See: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/mm-old.html#1943

And, inside:

Oh, yes, the large document. Sorry it has taken so long. Not the greatest images, but . . . .

Just got the book. And it is really QUITE disappointing. Poor quality of information, worse quality of images (even for 1991), and less than half the book relates to ODM of the socialist period and it totally ignores non-military stuff (OK, that wasn't quite the booklet's title, but one always hopes for better). The publisher, "pmargulies", seems to have no web presence (or, rather, it has died). If this same team is doing something else, I'd need to be convinced it is A LOT BETTER than this before spending any money on it. Am I sorry I bought it? Maybe. Would I buy it if I knew what I know now? Probably not. Will I throw it out? No.

This is a really good question, for all these fantasy "orders". They must have been concorted by some person or persons, probably sitting alone in the squalid dark, who desire to manufacture and self-bestowed some mark of "honor". As their goal is also to make money, simply by finding out to whom the money orders should be sent, you might just trace the origins. However illegitimate, these "orders" represent an interesting phaleristic netherworld and I fear that for many (and I have to struggle against this myself), the noxious cloud of general disgust surrounding these "orders" makes serious study and attention difficult. We badly need to know more, for 200 years from now they will surely confuse the hell out of future phalerists.

Another of those fantasy orders.

Thanks, Rick. The stamp:

Interior. Translation help please?

Document exterior.

I am still staring (ignorantly, as it is in Russian) at the list of recipients of the RSFSR RBL. Do I get credit for frustrated effort?

Come on, the OMSA awards aren't THAT bad.

Well, it is still there. If it doesn't get you excited enough, try the documented Order of Lenin Type 1 "Tractor" #93, on another dealer's site. "Just" $68,500.

I remember driving past and seeing it in summer 2006, but WHERE, and WHAT??

Thanks, Paul. Hoped you'd set us straight. We need a better reference than Peterson, I guess. (Hint, hint.)

Yes, Lilo, as I understand it (and it is very complex, not knowing Japanese), they'd drop their Rising Sun when they got the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Pawlonia Flowers. Or at least they should have. What they'd actually do is something else, and, of course, they'd wear NOTHING Japanese after 7 December 1941.