Ed_Haynes

The usual answer, which may not be sufficient, seems to revolve around a large number of very well financed Russians -- some serious collectors, some investors, some wealth-concealers -- who vacuum up everything. Repatriation is not so bad, I guess, if they are collectors, but once the Soviet stuff has "gone home" it will probably be staying there, even if the Russian mafia interest evaporates or moves on.

Welcome! And beware!! If it is all of these for $400 and they are good, I think we'd all like to meet this dealer. But sometimes when a deal is too good to be true, it is. I'd stay with known and reliable dealers, though that list is now very very short. Be very careful with dealers who don't know what they are doing. Get first the McDaniel and Schmitt book. While it is dated and, in some ways, surpassed (in Russian) it still stands as the central reference in English. For the English-speaking collector, it should be purchase #1. If you can read Russian, I am sure others will have better advice. Though the http://www.mondvor.narod.ru/ is still good and of use if you can tolerate the muddled but laughable online translations (I use the PROMPT add-on). Send PM for research advice, although for undocumented items the list of people doing that work is very short and very slow.

OK, I was confused. If he was commissioned, it might be worthwhile getting full research, including the service record. It sound like you only have pieces.

Don't discount the possibility that this was done by the recipient, either in an over-ambitious compliance with the orders to convert breast-worn awards to ribbons or by a foreign recipient in a place where drilling all those holes in your uniform, was not the norm. Since it is on e$cam, though, our worst fears may always be the most likely scenario.

I am also happy to help, James. PM sent. Ed

Can you get those photocopies? Without them the medal is diminished by 85%!!

Actually, I used to use PhotoShop but now use almost exclusively Paint Shop Pro (though the price on IrfanView is surely right, though I like the name "KnowingView" -- actually, in Christianity-English, "GnosisView" might be better).

Cleaned it up, Huigh. Something has been strange.

Oy! Not to me!

I've just made what I FULLY expect to be my last Soviet purchases. Herefater, I but only reserach, books, and if I can find a source language lessopns.

Someone out there seems to have cash?!

A really (!) nice one.

This is really and there are many threads here on these awards. Some see them as: -- legitimate continuations of Soviet authority, or as -- money-making frauds, or as -- interesting phaleristic sociology, as -- warped continuations of defunct authority (like teh ongoing awards of "royal" Italian orders), or as -- something to be ignored. Some see them as woirth collecting, others don't. I see them as worth collecting and am glad that so many don't, as otherwise the prices would be higher. But these larger questions, seeing awards as something that has meaning only within their history, psychology, and sociology are important and valuable. It is so sad when they are simply seen as "things" (worse, as "things of value"), extracted from history.

What you call "mercantile value" is quite simply only what some damn fool is willing to pay for the thing on any given day. The only "real" value is what you'd get if you melted it down for the silver content (which is, after also, also an artificial value, as you can't eat silver, or at least it has minimal nutritional content). There is an assumption in play here that "numismatic value" is real but "historical value" isn't. Here is where I fear there is much incomprehension. If you choose not to pay an asking price because something is damaged and I do because I think it is of historical value, the "mercantile value" is the same isn't it? If it remains unsold, for whatever reason, it has no "mercantile value" but if someone is willing to pay $4000 at auction (broken group perhaps? though "numismatic" collectors may not understand this?) then that is the "mercantile value". I am having some trouble here, as I don't recall the term "mercantile value" from ECON 1010 all those decades ago. But all this may be While I, too, see the asking price here as high, it may be because I am, as are others, "an old fart" (a technical term I do recall from ECON 101, but there relating to the professor) and remember when I bought my first Red Star for, I think, $10 (and that from Igor).

An interesting question. In some ways I guess it is like those foreign orders that were loosely absorbed into the French orders structure when France annexed places like Tunisia, the various islands of Comores, Annam, the constituent sultanates of Djibouti, Laos, etc., and these orders became, for some, "French" but in reality they retained their independent (though distorted and tightly controlled) identity as Tunisian, etc., awards.

Actually, as morbid as it is to consider this, it will be. In a few decades, it will be moving on. So many are offended by the "custodian" point that I'll brush it only in passing. We don't live forever, these awards will (or close enough).

Oh! Nice!! A major moment in history. Thanks for posting.

:love: Thanks for this, with Cuban things we are always learning!

The real question should be: "Why the English?" But the answer to that is probably obvious!?

Oh, Naples. Not Nepal.

Sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to ask. In these tiny muddy pictures I can see nothing that seems to have anything to do with Nepal (I assume that was your suggestion?).

Not at all Arabic. Probably Dari (though could be Pashto). Different languages, similar scripts, like Polish and English.

I suspect Zionist settlers in Palestine would have bought these quite happily. And, yes, now that it has been documented (though it needs to be published with good illustrations) there is some hope that someday we may know more. Though unofficial awards are always hard to establish, as there are rarely records.

Yet it is numberd, it can be researched (in theory, should one live long enough) and the history can be recovered. You know, it doesn't bother me in the slightest that Major Grigory Yakovlevich Ivanov's OPW is missing enamel -- http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=23128 -- or that Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Vavenko's Red Star -- http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10376 -- or Nikolai Andreiovich Lyashenko's Red Banner -- http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8387 -- are just lonesome singles. If I didn't (or couldn't) have names and stories and sometimes pictures to go with these, would I bother? Probably not. But being numbered, there's always hope and there's always history (some history being sexier that others).

To some collectors (and this forum, I think, has more than some), it matters a great deal. I (and others) are quite willing to pay money to research a piece that cost $20 or so. For the type collector, this seems lunatic, I am sure. For me (and others) it is ALL ABOUT the history. This is why for some unnamed unnumbered ahistorical medals hold little value or interest.