Ed_Haynes

The BIG THREE Or, al least what I think of as the "big three". Forget Karl and Gerhard! What mattered was: 1- Medaille f?r die Teilnahme an den bewaffneten K?mpfen der deutschen Arbeiterklasse 1918-23 - http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7338 2- Medaille f?r K?mpfer gegen Faschismus 1933-45 - http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7339 3- Hans-Beimler-Medaille - http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7337 These, by the way, are all cased, but I have taken them out of their homes for scanning.

Probably Arabic, from Al-Qur'an - let me chew on this - Dave???

Welcome back, Christophe! We missed you. Tell us your tales of foreign travel. I have hit only brick walls on this one, so I pass . . . . .

So few ever wore medals, based on photos of my father and his mates, I'd just arrange them, loose, 3/3/3/etc. In other words: Top row: Good Conduct, American Theater Second row (with first overlapped horizontally): Asiatic Pacific Theater 3 stars, WWII Victory medal, Phillippine Liberation medal

Thanks, Dan! This has inspired me to start adding mine over at http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11514

Heinz Kunert Held der Arbeit, cased and documented only. Most likely the progressive rock musician (bass and bass pedals), see: http://www.progressiveears.com/asp/reviews...mp;albumID=1673 and http://www.alexgitlin.com/npp/epid.htm and http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_ro....asp?cd_id=2813 See: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7336

Dankward Fehr This is a fully documented group and the documents are shown elsewhere. 1- Hero of Work 2- Verdienstmedaille der Deutsche Demokratische Republik 3- Verdienter Techniker des Volkes 4- Verdienstmedaille der Zivilverteidigung 5- Verdeinter Aktivist 6- Aktivist des Siebenjahreplans 1961 7- Aktivist des Siebenjahreplans 1965 8- Aktivist des Siebenjahreplans 1966 9- Aktivist des Siebenjahreplans [1968] 10- Arthur-Becker-Medaille I 11- Arthur-Becker-Medaille II 12- Arthur-Becker-Medaille III (suspension clasp only) See: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2455 http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7138

As I happen to have some of my DDR friends visiting "on home leave" this weekend (seeking a misplaced Pakistani award for a Forum Friend), I thought I might start a "my collection" thread on them. Some of these may be hidden here elsewhere, and links will be provided as relevant. Background: My interest in labor awards or the broadly defined "socialist" world, my interest in the pro-government side in the Spanish Civil War, and my interest in other pretty things that catch my eye.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO . . . sounds of screams receeding into the distance . . . .

I was thinking about getting involved in this potentially interesting discussion, but some of the tone adopted here makes me reconsider. Comrades, we must strive to maintain a mutually respectful tone, to share our thoughts and ideas as "gentlemen", not as rivals who must demonstrate constantly how much bigger our "knowledge" is than that between the ears of others. Phaleristics is not, I hope, a competitive sport. To descend into denigration of others' opinions just because they differ from our own threatens the strong community we have here and risks making us just like the other, snarling, whining, nasty, posturing fora. That being said . . . . What are we doing here? Are we trying to examine what people (or whatever rank) felt at the time or are we just pulling guesses out of out anatomy and asserting their truth? In the absence of primary sources and the authentic voice of the people we speak about (or around), we may be no more than channeling soldiers long gone in the assumition that their views must be the same as ours (simply because we are RIGHT). I know that capturing the views and voices of non-senior officers in any historical military is difficult, and doing so for the Soviet military during the GPW may be downright impossible. Memoirs, diaries, letters are in too short suppy to give us any hope in examing these questions seriously and professionally. As a corrective against any "he said, she said" tone, I ask: To what degree can the patterns of "upgrades" and "downgrades" of award recommendations give us a glimpse at at least some of the answer to this question? Dave?? I shall shut up now. You're welcome.

I hope we don't descend into that lonely masturbatory (can I say that on the forum?) corner where our cousins who do Soviet or Nazi awards reside and resort to a constant whining drumbeat of "fake - fake - fake". Yes, there are fakes out there. As prices rise and supplies stagnate, they are likely to increase. Yet there are also so many things that we don't understand (or even begin to know) about Mongolian awards, that I'd be reluctant to dismiss too many things too readily as fakes. Fantasies like that early internal security badge may be, I sumbit, another issue -- though we need to be careful even there, for their are surely things we don't know about (yet). However, there are things -- maybe naughty things -- going on with the "Gold Soyembo" awards. But there are also confusing internal complexities that we need to think about before shouting the "F-Word" too readily. The type 1.1 and type 2 badges (ignoring the type 1.2, which may well be a one-off for Tsedenbal) seem to suffer from a Polar-Star-style embedding of serial number ranges, suggesting that something more complex than an "early Soviet-made, late Mongol-made" scenario is at work: Type 1.1 - Low = 4 / High = 373 Type 2 - Low = 115 / High = 420 (Both these trouble-making "highs" are, by the way, shown above as examples of "good" awards.) The fact that the "bad boy" that commenced this discussion (and this thread) falls easily within the type 2 range, and not even toward the high end of that, makes me wonder about the "current ugly issue" theory. If the number were in the 500s, . . . ??? (Hope that doesn't educate the fake-makers?) I am, by the way, quite willing to accept the HYPOTHETICAL existence of a "type 3", a nasty contemporary issue. I would just love to see some evidence for this. And I'm not sure what we now know lets us call anything "evidence". So many things about this badge look so bad (same for some of the others Bob has posted), but we all know how a bad scan or, worse, a bad digital photo can make the best thing in the world look like last year's khor-khog. I don't pretend to know the answers, but I know these are things we need to discuss seriously.

Safe international shipping is expensive and a pain.

One for use, scribbled-in and falling apart. One (numbrered) on the shelf. One (unnumbered, but signed), hardbound, on the shelf.

Bat's book is back in stock with Igor. If you want one, you better get it fast! (I have three copies!)

Yes, what would we do without http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/

Thanks, Dave. Please keep us up to date! Also good news that you have some Red Bibles. How would a newbie start out without one? (Rather like the problems for new Mongolian collectors, now that Battushig's book is out of print. )

Only one god has that power, and it isn't me. There may, however, be a good reason to keep here (or maintain someplace) these badges from the "flip side" of Mongolian-Somebody friendship. Unless we document it (here), how can we know if a Cuban-Mongolian badge is Cuban or Mongolian? And thanks, Dolf, for hinting at your interest in these. Me too.

Ah, yes . . . in the old days, maybe . . . not now. Just 9948 to go!

Lovely eye-candy Dolf. Clearly, these "friendhsip" badges are far, far more complex than we ever imagined. Great!

Lovely stuff, Dolf! Thanks.

And when you consider that a pre-1911 Indian Order of Merit, 1st class (unnumbered, unnamed, unattributable) is listed on a major dealer's site at ?4,750.00, and that is a pretty fair price, it does put some things in perspective? (Hi, Christian!)

It is Spywear heaven (or someplace far south of there). Both Norton and Webroot Spy Sweeper rang bells (as usual). Shall PM e-mail Thanks, Ed

Would love to see these full-size, but due to the spyware/viruses inherent in this image hosting site, I cannot. Be warned, those of you without recently updated virus checking software . . . . Could you post then to the site normally???

A nice shot reference: http://www.yairmalachi.org/MedalsOfIsrael/VeteransMedals.htm of a now-Israeli veteran wearing his Israeli (and other) medals). Nice.

More, when I find 'em. (Must be hiding with your medal, Doc )