Bob

The brown leather booklet is what intrigues me the most... quality of the booklet, spot for a photograph, there must (wishful thinking) something more to it

And outside

And finally, another ?25 years of the MPR? ? low number, lot?s of scribbles on the inside AND the outside. Oddly enough, for such a low number, 1948 as date ? odd as numbers > 14.000 have a date in 1946

And then a small group to 1 person with the usual awards AND a booklet for Khalkhin Gol award issued in the 1959 Have seen that last document before, but don't recall seeing it as part of a group yet

the other booklet

?we won? and ?25 years of the MPR? documents? take note of the low number of the first document! I suspect both awarded to same person. At this point still personally signed (with some added text). Note on the ?we won? the previous lowest nr was 2.826 dated July ?46? we?re getting closer to the first awarding date (presumably then June ?46 such as 29th on this booklet)

inside? the brown leather booklet appears to have a place for a photograph ? another sign that this is not an ordinary booklet?

This is the document which has sparked my main interest? brown leather(ette) on the outside (therefore must be important?) with a faded picture of star on top, a bow or propeller underneath it and then a depiction of a solder (?) and uighur script around it? this doesn?t feel like your typical a dime a dozen award booklet? underneath it (unrelated I presume) a small black booklet for?..?

and now the mysterious folded piece of paper

inside

Next up a cardboard (???) booklet not yet seen before (I think)... again no clues on the inside... however, included folded on the inside was this piece of paper ? the mystery only gets bigger!

inside

Received an interesting deck of (award?) documents - will be posting some. First, booklet with cover I don?t recall having seen before and, in next post, the inside which offers me no clues... left with a big question mark

Coming back to this thread, so much progression has been made in the area of Albanian collection - for a large part due to Eric's work which has "opened up" this area of collecting by documenting in a well structured way the awards in his English (very helpful!) document, the changes during history, etc. Over the past year or two on this forum we've uncovered numbered Skanderbegs (and the informal feedback is still that these CAN be researched in the state archives!), deputy pints, hero star and hero of labour star, etc. Looking forward to the next phase: - there is an Albanian member of this forum working on a book + exhibition... should be well worth a visit to Tirana! - more and more award documents have come available offering both interestingly designed documentation (Albanian awards may be a bit crude vs. other countries, but the documents are great!) and some nice personalized reasons for awarding... hopefully more to come! - and then sights will be set on finding some elusive awards... such as the Laureat of Albania prize (seen by very few people sofar, and no picture available yet) 2008 promises to be an interesting year for Albanian awards (although one needs patience... things get uncovered at glacial speed - but that's better than not at all ) Wish all Albanian awards enthusiasts a fruitful 2008

Got one in my collection since recently as well. Not the same quality as Soviet made but interesting nonetheless. Not numbered on reverse. The flagpole not being solid metal is an interesting design feature.

Looks very nice. I am also used to hiding it in the vault (although by vault is in another country than where I live so typically expensive stuff tends to pile up at home until I have to go to the bank). I myself am looking (for a long time already) for an old entomologist cabinet - rather than store spiders, butterflies, etc. to store medals. One day I'll find that perfect cabinet (preferably not new but antique)

In Dutch we have a saying: he who doesn't dare to ask, already has "no" as an answer Seriously, great awards you have. Would be nice to see a picture of how you display them or are they safely locked away?

Herr Zulus, why not just sell the cavelier group to me for 3.000 Euro then. You make >100% profit and I get a good deal - everybody happy

Let's wait and see where this thread goes then. Hopefully people can post with enthusiasm on orders/medals but with restraint on any political stuff. I'll do some googling to see what I can find there. It sounds like a fascinating area to dig into a bit deeper.

Intention of this thread is not to start a debate about whether a group is terrorist or liberation movement, right or wrong, etc. but purely to identify which of these non-governmental movements (which may by some be considered terrorists, liberationmovements, freedom fighters, etc.) have or do not have orders/medals and - ideally - to see if some people can post some. I hope the thread can stay focussed on the phalerestic part only, not the politics. There are other forums for that. What triggered my question was the "free download" JOMSA which contains quite some info on these awards in Middle East. On a different note, it's been a pain for me sofar to try to become a member of OMSA...

Have become interested in expanding my collection beyond just soviet / socialist state orders and medals to also swords. Is there, similar to in the area of ODM, a "short list" of main dealers (ideally also with website containing stock to look at and learn)? Thanks, Bob

I'm curious - are there any collectors here of awards given by non-governmental military organizations (I'll leave the terrorist / liberation movement distinction for a different thread) - e.g. RAF, IRA, PLO, FARC, Sendero Luminoso, etc.? Is there any knowledge of this captured anywhere? Do these organizations even provide orders/medals? Driven a bit by curiosity here from reading a lot on RAF past couple of days. Thanks

Thank you all. As the initiator of this thread (as well as it's "dead" twin on soviet-awards), I'd appreciate if future posts in this thread focus only on the topic of this thread - i.e. the "Researched Order of Service to the Motherland Group" which has been up for debate for a few days now. All other topics: either start a different thread OR communicate your thoughts offline (PM, email, etc.) to whomever you want to OR reconsider completely whether they require communicating. Please (as of now!) no responses anymore to this post or any other post that went "off topic" in this thread. Thank you, Bob PS update: no response to any of my PM's or emails to Mark Signa. No new post by him either despite visits to soviet-awards.com. I understand it's Christmas time but obviously, considering the severity of the topic at hand, with each passing day I am increasingly inclined to draw a definitive conclusion based on the facts / analysis as presented thusfar. I'll contact relevant moderators on soviet-awards.com to ask if they've been informed offline of the dealer supposedly responsible for the first "fabrication".

Nice! Recently visited the V1/V2 facilities / museum on the north coast of germany... interesting little former east german town. It was noted that the Germans were already experimenting with submarine launched V2s at end of the war. Anyway, highly recommended place to visit.

Yes, judging by the serial number / date, order of red banner of labor would seem possible. Somebody thought: let's make some more money... and as a result the history will be lost and any reasonably knowledgable collector will not touch this booklet.