cimbineus

Greg,

I have one somewhere but can not get it at the moment. Cimbineus should be able to help you here.

Regards,

Gordon

Gents,

Here is the award and the miniature.

Regards,

cimbineus

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Since we have already touched upon an earlier period of the history of Hungary, let me put here another favorite piece of fakers, the "Minesweeper" badge. Here is one widely spread counterfeit version of the badge:

VORSICHT, FÄLSCHUNG!

ОСТОРОЖНО, ПОДДЕЛКА!

BE CAREFUL! THIS IS A FAKE!

ATTENTION, FAUX!

ATTENTI, FALSO!

Not the Peoples Republic but the Tildy era - I know of only a handful of originals. This is supposed to be a signals/radiomans wings

Hunyadi, many thanks for posting these pictures. Thanks God I have no fake ones of this series, but you are 100% right. The "Budapest faker gang" a decade ago was busy with counterfeiting all the six pieces of this rare than rarity series. Gents, if you meet one of these six badges, please, do not believe your fortune, those will definitely be fake ones. Hunyadi, please, advise me, where shall I put some pictures of real ones? I think not in this topic, because that would cause confusion, I guess. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

cimbineus

(P.S.: I beg for your understanding, but I warn you all in advance, that I will not post the pictures of the backs. This is part of my fight against fakers, because they basically have never held an original piece in their hands. They do their criminal activities using photographs.)

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... And here is the back:

VORSICHT, FÄLSCHUNG!

ОСТОРОЖНО, ПОДДЕЛКА!

BE CAREFUL! THIS IS A FAKE!

ATTENTION, FAUX!

ATTENTI, FALSO!

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... And here is a closer view:

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Gents,

Perhaps, this is the most often faked HPR award. The basis is the latter version of the Service to the Country Medal, but with the '49 coat of arms.

cimbineus

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... And this is another one from the same seller:

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This artificially composed ribbon bar is from a recent offer on the leading Hungarian auction site:

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And here is another one, but already from a different field:

cimbineus

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...And here is another one from the same category:

cimbineus

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Gents,

Thanks God, there are not too many known fakes from the HPR period, but still, there are some. There are some "fantasy" awards as well, which are usually created from different existing and real details from other orders or medals. Much more often one can meet artificially compose groups and ribbon bars, which may contain some tempting pieces as well, used as "bait".

Let us start with some pieces from the higher "echelon". Here is the first one, which partially uses original details, but the star itself is a cast.

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Gents,

Let us forget that unfortunate interact and concentrate on our wonderful hobby.

Charles, I also ask you to continue your work here. I appreciate your devotion and you can rely on my support too.

Regards,

cimbineus

(P.S.: For fakes and this kind of things I rather start a new thread just to make that topic more "user-friendly".)

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...And the last, the third type of the "EXEMPLARY FARMER" badge, from 1957:

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This is the second type of the badge from 1953:

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Gents,

Let us continue our Hungarian Section with this badge. It was instituted in 1948, and as such, it is one of the first badges of this kind. "EXEMPLARY FARMER". The inscription on the upper part is: "FOR THE EXTRA PRODUCTION". These badges are numbered, and relatively scarce.

Regards,

cimbineus

... I recommend Cimbineus ...

Many thanks hunyadi, but that would be too much honour for my modest personality. By the way, let me insert a picayune citation:

Personal sensibility is a different question, I think.

Regards,

cimbineus

Gentlemen,

It was never my intention to cause such a rift when posting three, simple ribbon bars. I regret the decision- never thought it would lead to this. After all, when the original material (ribbon itself) is deviated from (paper or paint), and given the fact that the designer may use some "artistic license" because of the supplies at hand, what we have here is a representation at best, and will never actually be sure of what we're looking at without the award documents present. And that's well and fine because it is, after all, the way it was.

Dear Greg,

Do not feel bad, please. Those ribbon bars are interesting, and your conclusions are totally correct. Let me tell you something else, but closely related to this question. Unfortunately, the Hungarian merchant are very inventive. Aiming at foreign buyers sometimes they simply create unique pieces. Just one recent example. On one of the Hungarian auction sites rigth now there are seven (!) artificially composed ribbon bars of all three types (painted plastic, plastic and paper, textile) with some odd and seemingly interesting things. And there are bids on some of those. As you said, in some complex cases without the award documents we cannot be sure. I tried to say the same.

Regards,

cimbineus

Gents,

After my previous intervention I received a PM with some questions. Thank you for that. I think it would be interesting for you if I try to explain my position once more here using an example.

Let us suppose, there are two awards: award "A" and award "B". The Statutum of award "A" says: … The ribbon of the medal is middle-blue with a 5 mm central part containing the national colours. And, the founding document of award "B" says: … The ribbon of the medal is middle-blue with a 14 mm central part with the national colors.

Now, if you see a separate (!) ribbon with 5 mm central part, what would you say? Certainly, you will say: this is the ribbon of award "A". And accordingly, if you separate those three ribbons from that bar, most probably everyone would say: those are for the Service to the Country Medals.

But if it is so, and everything is so self evident (seemingly only!), why I am not certain about those three pieces at the end? Because what hunyadi said, namely, the "constellation" of the bars. Because of their places on the bar, the logic behind, the existence or non existence of some other ribbons in that bar, etc. All these important things could lead to different conclusions, I think.

Regards,

cimbineus

...considering the awards it would have been awarded to a senior NCO or officer - if these were four Service to the Nation in silver - where are the long service awards??

Well, I believe, many philosophical questions could be asked, to whom, why and where are the other awards, if he made a mistake or, if the shop had run out of the correct bars, e.t.c. Those are already different other aspects of that piece, I think. I was only talking about that particular bar, embodied in some pieces of plastic, paint, paper and brass, how it appears and what we can see in its physical reality. Those narrow strips are characteristic for the Service to the Country Medals, either with yellow, or white lines on both sides, or without those lines.

...Top: clearly its a painted on ribbon bar and the yellow bands on the Service to the Nation are clearly seen - thin tricolor and then on the last part three (gold, silver, bronze) awards of the Public Security Medal. The tricolor is broader on these - pretty clear cut - nice design...

Fully agree...

...Middle: ... two Service to the Nation in silver awards ....

Yes.

...Bottom: ... here we clearly see the Service to the Nation in Gold followed by the Service to the Nation in Silver - there are no yellow bands on the light blue paper style ribbon. Then we see on the last row the Flood Medal...

Yes.

... followed by three of the Public Security Medals (gold, silver, bronze) the paper ribbon uses darker blue but the same thin tricolor as the Service to the Nation in Silver.

This is a bit shaky, I think. It is possible, but I am not certain. Those also could be Service to the Nation in Silver.

...The top and middle ribbon bars date from about the mid 1960's and have "quality" the lower one dates from the 1970's and 80's when they all went to the really bad looking paper ribbon bars...

Fully agree.

Regards,

cimbineus

... Medal of Labour/Service (should be in the second spot), the Workers and Peasants medal (should be first) and the Public Security medal (light blue here):

Gents,

To my best knowledge, the order is correct, because the Workers, Peasants Medal, as a commemorative medal, first was behind all State Merit Medals. And, the last one, as hunyadi said, the Service to the Country Medal, most probably the Commemorative one. (The name later was changed from Commemorative to Merit, but the medal itself remained the same.)

Regards,

cimbineus

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Here are the three versions of the badge:

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... Just another arty experiment...

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Here are some examples from different fields of activities and from different eras: (Professional Hunter)

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Here are some examples from different fields of activities and from different eras: