Bob

In Photos: Mikhail Gorbachev's Funeral - The Moscow Times Interesting to see a picture of his orders/medals in above article. His wikipedia page seems very incomplete with regard to the overview of his orders/medals (Soviet ones almost go unmentioned). Anybody with a fully complete list?

I love GMIC - it's been critical in all my orders/medals collecting endeavors for years. Restricting access for new/non-paying members I am not in favor of as we need to keep the threshold low for new people to enter the hobby. Am in favor of selected sponsorships more so than google driven advertising. Would suggest to also hand out digital medals for on members profile tied the the size of donation made.

Aha, yes, mixed up.

Her son Edward wasn't an angel either... And Sobhuza II beats Louis...

To breath some life into this, here's a group which I recently picked up which fits into the theme of the book. The documented group awarded to Private (later Captain) Mihail Pavlovich Smolin contains Soviet as well as Mongolian awards. - Order of the Patriotic War 2nd class #5441340 + document - Medal for Combat Merit #1198682 (6 May, 1944) + Medal for Combat Merit #1348322 (14 September, 1944) + Medal for Combat Merit w/o Number (21 August, 1953) + document referring to all 3 medals - Medal for the Victory over Germany + document - Just the document for 30 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR - Tank Driver Proficiency Badge 3rd class (+ document with picture portraying Smolin in 1957) - Military Passport (containing picture of Smolin in 1973) - 2 Medals for Impeachable Service in the Red Army and Navy, 15 and 20 years + document - Mongolian Friendship Medal #1151 + document - Mongolian Medal 50th Anniversary of the Mongol Peoples Army + document - Mongolian Medal Medal 30th Anniversary of the War - and a few other items Citation Combat Merit Medal #1348322 Comrade SMOLIN has always been very reliable and diligent in supervision the telephone lines assigned to him. Such as, in the offensive operation since 17 July 1944, he promptly repaired all the damages to the line. In the combat engagements during 12-19 August 1944, comrade SMOLIN was servicing the telephone line in the vicinity of the village Pielaszów, Sandomierz region [Poland]. Under constant enemy artillery and mortar barrage, he repaired numerous telephone line damages during both day and night. On 19 August 1944, when the enemy attempted a counter attack, the telephone line was severed in several places by the enemy mortar fire. Comrade SMOLIN , despite the enemy fire, went out to the field and repaired 7 line breaks in the course of 10 minutes. On the same day, comrade SMOLIM went out 5 times to fix the line on different occasions. His effort allowed the command to maintain constant governance of the forces on the battlefield. Commander of the headquarters More info: Смолин Михаил Павлович :: Память народа (pamyat-naroda.ru) I can translate using google translator but would appreciate if somebody could help to point me to his second combat merit medal citation?

Another Tamara, a bit smaller in size than usual (gut feeling) and dark enamel.

There used to be a dedicated Albania section in the menu which you could click on and you'd see only/all the Albania threads. In order to clean up the 'appearance' of the main menu Albania got dumped under this Southeastern European bucket and since then interest has dropped because it's not se easily accessible anymore. This was years ago.

And now the addition to the Tovuu Yondon group arrived. It's more than likely still incomplete, but at least it' more complete than before with this third 'installment'. Sad that these groups are split in the first place of course. In this round, the following items arrived - Mongolian Order of Red Banner of Labor Valor + document (serial nr 2886, from 1969) - Mongolian Medal for the Victory over Japan + document (serial nr 22728) - Mongolian Badge of the Deputy of People's Great Khural issued to Comrade Tovuu Yondon in 1966. The serial number is 005 and the badge and document match the serial nr - Undocumented Badge of the People's Honored title holder #0416. Comrade Tovuu was conferred a title of the Honored Construction Worker in 1976 by decree # 271 of the Presidium of People's Great Khural. Page 492 of the blue bible provides more details about his bio (1515.20): see below - Document for the Soviet Medal for Victory over Japan issued to Comrade Tovuu in April 1946 His bio from the blue bible: Tovuu Yondon lived from 1919 to 1989, Arbulag soum of Khuvsgul aimag. When he was a welder in a reinforced concrete factory he was awarded the Honorary Builder title (1976). He enlisted in the People's Army in 1939 and was a veteran of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and the 1945 War of Independence. From 1945, he worked as a builder, rebar fitter an shop manager at the Ulaanbaatar Construction Trust and the House Manufacturing Plant. He retired in 1979. He was a senior worker and innovator who worked productively for many years in the construction industry and made a significant contribution to the training of young workers. He was twice elected to the People's Great Khural and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor Valor, the Order of the Polar Star (note: missing from my group), the Labor Medal (note: also missing) and the jubilee medal.

Definitely not the Battushig book (which is in color). I'll browse through my library when I am back home. I think I may have the book, not 100% sure.

And, remarkably, more than 10 years later, I'll soon have an additional bit of re-unification to share on this group.

Been able to spend more time on this book this Easter weekend. Overall, if you don't mind it's in Russian, I see this as a worthy addition to a serious Mongolia collectors library. While the information on types/variations as well as manufacturing runs and statutes largely overlaps with (or is copied from) Urnukh's book, there's a wealth of other information to be 'mined' from this book. Let me provide some examples: - Lots of (rare) pics of Soviet awardees - Pics of rare award documents (e.g. Brezhnev's) - Some interesting pics of sample orders and insight into plans to number them on the obverse (i.e. Order of Polar Star first awarding, second awarding, etc.) - Detailed lists (although I suspect incomplete) of awarding of Mongolian awards to specific Soviet recipients (often with date, serial nr, decree reason/date) => can make it much more interesting to bid on higher end Mongolian awards as it's possible to determine if /who it was awarded to (if you are lucky) - Insight on the State Prize of MPR (nr of awardings, names) - More insight on the Khalkhin Gol medal/badge - List of all cosmonauts awarded the Hero of Mongolia gold start (surprisingly, Gagarin was not one of them although there was a letter sent to Soviet authorities.... something must have led them to reject it); unfortunately STILL no complete list of serial nr / names for the Hero Star so in the end this did not help me further much - Also provides information on ranges/years during which certain Mongolian awards were given to Soviets for certain themes Lastly, something I'll copy from the book - ribbon bar of Soviet Marshall Budyonny as well as Zhukov. Notice the embroidered cloth versions of original Mongolian 'old style enamel ribbons for the Order of the Red Banner. All in all, by no means a perfect book, but a nice expansion of the available documented knowledge on Mongolian awards. I wish, as a next step, there'd come a book which very comprehensively lists the serial nrs / recipient names / decree nr + date + reason for the top Mongolian awards. Realize it's a small 'market' but that would be VERY helpful. first one is Zhukovs, second one Budyonny

Just received this and will be taking some time to digest it and then post a longer review. In short though: - Published late 2017 it appears - 275 pages - Russian language (although that's manageable nowadays with google translate app on the phone) - Focused entirely on awardings of Mongolian orders, medals and some badges to Soviet citizens - Certainly not all the information is "new" (i.e. taken from other books, specifically Urnukh's "bible" for most Mongolia collectors) but still it's a good book to have in the collection in light of the pictures of recipients, awards, prototypes, documents, etc. and also what appears to be information on serial numbers matched with names - More 'work' to be done to digest the actual text This book is NOT easy to get (unfortunately). More to come later.

There are no more entries past page 11 unfortunately. I posted all the pages with written entries on them. They're not easy to read which is unfortunate as there's quite a bit of personal / military career detail there.

Thanks - i need to make a note to look up old materials as (while not OG 1st class) I vaguely recall that there were OG 3rd class (perhaps also 2nd?) awarded pre 1945 to Mongolians. In any case, that does not belong in this thread.

Easy question to ask, perhaps not so easy to answer. any OH 1st class awarded tied to actions in/near Mongolia?

Documented set of for a Labor Glory cavalier - Matrenicheva E.N. Order of Labor Glory 1st Class. Award # 0177. Awarded on Dec. 5, 1985. Order of Labor Glory 2nd Class. Award # 2877. Awarded on Dec. 27, 1976. Order of Labor Glory 3rd Class. Award # 28698. Awarded on Feb. 14, 1975. Includes the special "Full Cavalier of Orders of Labor Glory" Orders Book (incl. a photo of the recipient) as well as the booklet for the 3rd and 2nd class as well as 2 McDaniel authentications. Hopefully there is a path to research. Am amazed at how volatile (downward!) the prices for these sets have been considering their rarity.

You are correct, it's not a Tamara specific document. It does include refence to the person having been awarded a Tamara (the purple stamp).

With Mongolia collecting, not much is 'standard' and that's part of what makes it a lot of fun.

Another document for a Tamara - 13/12/1918 This one from Josef Schmid from the 15th Jager Regiment The handwriting in the document is not easy to decypher - it looks like he was also awarded an iron cross 2nd class and a wound badge

It's awfully quiet on the Albania collecting front - and the wretched decision to eliminate the dedicated Albania section didn't help either! - but I for one do appreciate your posts which keep breathing life into things here!

Remarkable how years later there is more to be found online about sorkin incl pics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum_Sorkin

I do not have a copy and if anybody can help source a copy, I'd love to get one. Apparently not much new actual "information" (e.g. data on manufacturing runs, serials numbers, etc. is all obtained from existing online sources and Urnukh's "bible". However, appealing pics on Mongolian awards in possession of the Moscow/Leningrad mint as well as pictures of award documents to Soviet citizens (e.g. Brezhnev). Here's some links to pics of the book: Новая книга: Награды Монголии - Советским Гражданам (forums-su.com) Награды Разных Стран Мира. - Монголия - Книга "Награды Монголии - Советским Гражданам." (Лот: 014/Монгол) (zasluga.ru) And this youtube channel (with multiple mongolian award videos - in Russian unfortunately) appears related to the authors:

What puzzles me is the selection process. Only 900 or so cavaliers means it was very prestigious to be awarded a 1st class. But based on what? When I read above that a factory mechanic got one, surely there's millions (?) of others in similar jobs. Was there an aspect here of it not so much being merit based but more intended for propaganda purposes - i.e. setting a good example?

This same set just 'resold' for roughly 6K USD at the New York Sale auction. What did the papers say about inflation again?

If you bid on that and then complain once you get it as being fake, he'll say "I never said it was Cuban" Pay close attention to how he advertises it: " «"Golden Star" of the Hero of Labor of Caribbean»"