Bryan

For me this forum is the more interesting concerning research and the other to learn how to spot fakes.

To help you read russian handwriting for your researched documents. http://languages.uchicago.edu/NativeHand/C...dwriting/A.html

This is better to post this here. On S-A, I can only post small pictures. A copy from Lonely Planet.

Christophe, they have changed the name of the metro station. I noticed this last summer. The station Izmaylovski Park has been renamed Partisanskaya. Sturday and Sunday are the best day to go!

I guess Paul Schmitt must have ordered a lot for his book Echoes of War!

My opinion is that you should deserve a small reduction for that amount you spend!

Dave, to have ordered so many researches, do you have special prices that we might don't have for research?

The problem is that people can spend a fortune to reunify groups, but what tells you that in the future they won't be sold separately by the future owner.

How many medals, orders or groups have you asked research for? I'm quit new with researching awards, because up to now I preferred to spend money on new orders instead of researching what I already have. I have to admit that for a "low scaled" collector like me, researching awards is kind of expensive. You spend lots of money on research before even that you have a decent collection. However I have decided to conduct 2 researches, one a group and one on an order. I made them 2 months ago and I am thrilled to see what do I have. I also bought a small documented grouping not so long ago that I should receive pretty soon. So up to know, in theory, I only have 3 researched awards or grouping. I was wondering how many researches did you already asked for or things in your collection that had already been researched. I'm just curious. It seems that this forum is well oriented towards researching awards more than any other forum I visit. Do you prefer to research what you have already or spend more your money on new stuff? Thanks for your thoughts! Bryan

Not cheap! http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/096...1008164-4793449

What is really the real value of an item? With all those inflated prices today, I wonder what could be the ? actual value ? of an item ? It doesn't mean if I won a medal on eBay for the half of the dealer's price, that I actually don't care about the historical value of my medal. I just can't agree with you.

I have to admit that this one is a keeper! Really nice piece!

Hello Gerd and Jim. Thanks for your comment. First of all I was happy to get this small lot, but I will never buy again from the dealer I bought it from. It took him almost 2 months after my payment, before he sent it to me. The guy was too busy! Funny that he had time to answer some of my e-mails. I will not proceed to a research right now, but will surely do it in the future. Jim, I don?t know what the difference would be between sawed or shortened as for me if it is sawed, it is also shortened. It seems that the screwpost was cut and then polish. Is it true that all Great Patriotic War combat that was alive in 1985 received one of those OGPW?

And a WWII and a 1985 OGPW.

There is not a lot of contributions so far, so here are mine. A special OGPW that came with 2 other Red Stars like this.

The Chinese medal is very cool!

Actually I have no idea what it is, but it looks very nice and very rare.

How rare are those "money coupons" to find?

Otto Schmidt. It sounds more German than Russian.

Speechless!

Milan, do you have pictures from your previous Order of National Liberation, Order of War Flag and Order of the Grand Star of Yugoslavia???

Why did you sell everything? Did you kept anything from the former Yugoslavia?

I forgot to mention that the Partisan Star 2nd Class was awarded from August 15th 1943 only 1531 times until 1972. The 3rd Class was awarded 10 384 times until 1973. Just imagine the price of Soviet orders that were awarded only 1500 times! I think it is very difficult to find the Partisan Star 2nd Class at $250. Hope I'll be lucky to find it.

I think most of the groups were original. It was just to difficult to take good pictures with all those windows!

Thank you for the answer. That is crazy that they needed to melt it probably.