Ed_Haynes

Jan's looks "close enough" (the work of a Buriyat? -- Soviet "Mongol"?) your looks iffy.

Ooooohhhhh, JC. I see cause for concern here (though I don't have any hope of reading bichig). Hope you don't mind, but I am sending this off to UB for comment.

It bothers me. A lot.

The publisher made an ABSOLUTE HASH of the ribbon charts. Fixed now. Grumble, kvetch.

So are we all, Darrell, so are we all. Finding restrikes isn't too very hard (Morton and Eden just had a set at auction), but original ones are very hard.

The old song's title was "Stars Fell on Alabama", but I don't live in Alabama.

Just in.

The Researcher will be able to buy a new car based on this research? All high-numbered, so some may turn up of interest?

Thanks!

Thanks, Jim. I still have real trouble with handwriting, made all the worse when the Russians never quite knew how to deal with quirky Mongolian names.

Another Red Star warded to a Mongolian, see http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=23503

Red Star 1780032

Awarded to a Mongolian, see http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=23503

Record card 2

Nothing else.

Record card 1 - again, I beg help in reading what little information is here.

Red Star 1780032

Lovely lovely things, Chuck!

Nice to see things work this way!

Good news, Christian! We've all been waiting. As we've been waiting for our own research!

Thank you, Jim:

Thanks for the warning, Rick, and Paul's advice is absolutely on target. Until we get a good reference book in English written by someone who has the linguistic and historical skills to do it right, Chinese phaleristics will remain a nightmare zone.

And a lot of people seem to be getting fleeced by these things.

Marvelous! Thanks, Chuck!

This raises some interesting questions, and makes us focus on the fuzzy boundary zone between phaleristics and numismatics.

-- If one's focus is on these things as history (phaleristics) anything that wasn't awarded and isn't somehow linkable to the recipient (by being named or numbered or at least potentially researchable) is of only limited interest. Items that cannot by their very nature be attributed or researched (e.g., a Third Reich Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross) or was never awarded (e.g., surplus stock sold off by the Mongolian State Bank) are, at best, of only limited interest. For those of this doctrinal persuasion, the preservation of groups is an absolute necessity. The recent research-based ability to reinstill history into some (but by no means all) pre-1918 German medal groups brings them, I guess, into the lower ranges of this category?

-- If one's focus is on these things as things (numismatics), with no more focused historical content than, say, a coin of Diocletian might hold. This mode of study focuses on such issues as design history (including prototypes), numbers awarded (or not, the difference is only technical here), or the evolution of detailed typologies of awards (e.g. type 3.5.29.4 awarded from March to May of 1953). That an award may have been awarded to an identifiable individual or be part of a group is something between a fact of mild interest and a nagging inconvenience (in that groups may include things of only marginal interest). The question as to whether an award is of contemporary manufacture to the period of award may (Third Reich German) or may not (U.S. awards) be of great concern, though it can give rise to extensive and often animated debate and discussion.

Many of us (myself included) are apostates, gleefully transgressing the boundary separating these categories and mixing aspects of both doctrinal traditions (personally, I'm maybe 80% phaleristics, 15% numismatics, 5% magpie collector of sparkly things that grab my interest).

The HK guys served on the western front in Egypt, on the Libya side, and later in Palestine. I have a nice MM to an artilleryman (of Indian origin) for this western front service.

One of the VERY FEW WWI MMs to Indians.

Do not NOT NOT miss:

1- Central Armed Forces Museum

2- Museum of Contemporary Soviet History - Former Central Museum of the October Revolution (stuff from the deserted and sad Lenin Museum)

In that order.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War is worth visiting for the ambience and architecture, less for the medals (mainly fake).

And, of course, Red Square. Just to be there. Have a vodka across Red Square from Lenin's Tomb and ponder how things have changed.

I am told the research has come in. The glacier moves . . . .

Also - what is a "gold god"???

Images of one or another buddha or bodhisattva, as displayed on the traditional "altar" area of the gher, where many display their medals too.

The UB rumor mill holds that these awards were "sold North" (as the slang puts it).

Yes, the latest to date. His entry in the Sky Blue Bible.

(And what is he wearing at his neck?!?!)