Ed_Haynes

For a long time, there have been no US-Mint-issued medals, so, I guess, no "official" medals. They come from "official" suppliers/manufacturers. They sell like crazy, on and off the internet, even on eBay. As with French or Belgian medals (or even German medals) what is "real" and what is not? The question is what is "period", but from which period??

Unless you have a named (officially??) medal or a documented group {"group?) you never know and even then you may not.

So much easier in the UK where the mint makes and disatributres medals.

But if current lunatic "patriotic" congressional legislation succeeds, all trade in US medals will be stopped (at least for US citizens), so . . . .

Envy you Albert! Have enough trouble with my few languages (mainly South Aasian) and my recent efforts to pick up some Mongolian.

You mind if I post a few for your reading pleasure? My colleague in Russian history grows grumpy when I ask him too often!

My novice eyes do not like it, not one bit.

Shabash! Not having much experience in researching natives (of the British Isles), I just never think of sources like that.

If these were Indian Army officers (rather than British Army), personnel records should reside in the Indian Office Records, now Thatcherised into the British Library (and, therefore, hard to use). The Indian Army Lists -- many of which I have -- won't help in answering your questions, sorry.

Ed, i am stunned. I am trying to find one award of the Afghanistan period and you come op with THREE GROUPS!!! Just fantastic, you are the master in finding good stuff(beside your other masters degrees ).

Congratulations to your fantastic new finds

Thanks, Gerd (and all). One thing that surprises me is that these recent awards can be researched, even for recipients who are still living. But maybe Tzar Putin's minions will put a stop to this (too)?

Until then . . .

This one has wanted re-scanning; it just got it.

Major Vladimir Fedorovich Dubrovin

See: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3222

Please, can anyone fill gaps or refine my "readings"? Thanks.

Choibalsan died 26 January 1952. Here, as a grumpy (grumpier?) old man, he seems to have made space on his overcoat for all five (unnumbered?) ORBCs.

This previous picture must be

- from before 1945 when the Order of Sukhbaatar was instituted (Choibalsan would eventually get three of them, two for his two "hero" awards)

- and from before 1946 when the hero star was redesigned into a more "Soviet" award

This picture must date from after 1946, as he wears the new designs and and cut back (to make space?) to just four of the new (post-1945) design of the ORBCV. He has also messily added a victory over Japan to the single (victory over Germany?) Soviet WWII medal that he wears indistinctly in the above picture. As the victory over Germany was created 9 May 1945 and the Japan medal waited until 30 September 1945, maybe there is a chronological hint here?? When were they actually distributed to "allied states"?

The war is over (I think this is from the Victory Parade?) and

- he gets his Suvorov 1st class - 8 September 1945

- he gets his second hero - 20 September 1945

- he gets a new Soviet medal for the victory over Germany (?)

- he remounts his Soviet medals

And a similar shot with his second Lenin.

Oops, missed this one. Please mentally insert before the previous one.

Sometime before his second Lenin. And five (5!) apparently unnumbered OBRMVs.

Sometime toward the end of the war, Choibalsan dresses up and poses with lis "little buddy" Tsedenbal. See:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489&st=25

He has acquired a second Lenin (after 1943) now worn on suspension and here wears his marshal's star.

Sometime (toward the end of the war?), he poses with his Northern Buddy Zhukov with a somewhat abbreviated set of awards.

See: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489&st=7

And one with his hat on, shown at

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489&st=0

OK -

- in 1940 he turns in his OBRMV and Polar Star badges for the new design

- 10 July 1941 he gets a badge for his "Hero" title

- sometime before 1943 he gets his first Lenin

- sometime he gets the Tuvan Order of the Republic

While he received the rank of Marshal in 1936 (a useful tool for some of the photos above?), the star wasn't introduced until 1940. But Choibalsan didn't always wear it!

So . . . maybe . . . 1941/1942?

An interesting image. Shown before at

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489&st=18

Four (but unnumbered?) pre-1940 ORBMV, his pre-1940 Polar Star, he has now added his second (numbered) Soviet Red Banner. An image ca. 1939/1940?

You want muddy? The cover photo of an undated biography, Монголын хувьсгалын алдарт их удирдагч улсын (маршал) єрлєг жанжин нєхєр Чойбалсан. If you wish to practice your bichig, the whole file is online as a PDF at

http://www.chriskaplonski.com/downloads/choibalsan.pdf

About the same time??? Speaking out.

I am having trouble with the awards here. Can clearer eyes squint a bit?

And here the chronology gets messy . . . .

Here he is with Brotherly Northern Friends. See

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489&st=16

One Red Banner (1922), one pre-1940 ORBMV, and his pre-1940 Polar Star. Maybe 1939-ish?

Not much later, but with a new uniform and a (very?) new medal, his RSFSR Red Banner (March 1922). The full picture shows him side-by-side with an over-dressed Marshal Budyonny (Battushig, p. 13).

A bright-eyed and svelte young Choibalsian with his mates. Battushig (p. 15) captions this "Choibalsan with comrades after the graduation of the military academy in Russia 1922". Seems fair. No medals yet, but soon!

As an adjunct to my our efforts at detailing Soviet awards to Mongolian leaders

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10329

and our depiction of awards in wear

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5489

I have been trying to disentangle the awards chronology or Marshal Choibalsan, using available photos.

With advance apologies to those whose photos I have "borrowed", I'll present here what I can find and solicit more images and more information, especially a refinement of the chronology to these photos that can be cross-referenced to a chronology of his awards. When/if records become available, we can see how well (or badly) we have done?

Reading (in "spare time") through the History of the Mongolian People's Republic (USSR Academy of Sciences/MPR Academy of Sciences, 1973), I have found a few extra data points, added above. I expect to find more.

The book, by the way, is really worth getting and reading. Highly recommended! Has been reprinted by the University Press of the Pacific, ISBN 0-89875-035-0. Delightfully nostalgic ideology in places: "Marxism-Leninism teaches that not every revolutionary situation leads to a revolution. . . ."