Mathomhaus

Not taking anything into consideration with regard to things like size, weight, and whether the design matches an accepted original pattern, I would not buy this medal because the finish on it is identical to the many copies that flooded the American market back in the early 90s. If you go through the souvenir shops or look at the "flea market" tables in Moscow or St. Petersburg even today you will see crosses with the same vaguely antiqued finish and invariably they will be on Soviet era or current "St. George" ribbon. St. George crosses "for non-Christians" are among the rarest of the rare. Not all photos in reference books (like Durov's) of originals in museum collections are particularly helpful - the focus may be slightly off or the color not true - but if you look at them whenever you have the chance you will come to the realization that virtually none have an almost "antiqued" finish like the one in your photo. While hyper-rare items can always show up in the most unexpected of places - that's part of the fun of collecting! - I personally would not buy a non-Christian St. George cross today from anyone except an established dealer in (or auctioneer of) Russian militaria. True, I would pay a lot for it but at least I'd be able to sleep at night. Regards

Two years after I wrote my earlier comment (above), I was was told by a fellow whom I respect as an advanced collector of imperial Russian orders and medals that finding slanted sides on the arms of a St. George cross is perfectly o.k. if it's a cross issued during WW1... Regards

These badges were actually cap badges, I believe; at least that's what the design started out as in a much earlier reign. I have never seen a photo of one being worn on a tunic. Regards

Bol'shoi spasibo! When I visited Victory Park, I soon realized that I had only one memory card with me; as a result, by the time I got to the museum's main courtyard, I had to limit myself to taking only one or two photos each of things like busts and flags. Ever since that day, I never go anywhere w/o seeing that I have a fistfull of memory cards in my camera bag. Regards

Relative to what Stalin did or did not receive, when new busts of the WW2 Soviet Marshals were created in the early 1990s for display in the new museum in Moscow's Victory Park, one of the Generalissimo was also cast and installed with all of the others. Not a bad likeness although it seems to me that it's a little more idealized than the busts done during his lifetime! I apologize in advance if my photos do not come out clearly; while no stranger to digital photography, trying to meet the 200K size restriction has driven me not quite crazy but certainly to the Standart vodka earlier than usual! FYI: on the medal bar are two Orders of Lenin, three Red Banners, 20th Anniversary of the Red Army, Defense of Moscow... Regards

As I have understood it, the "GOST" date does not show the actual year that a flag was made but the year that the pattern being used was either initially authorized or reauthorized by the contracting authorities of the Soviet government/military. The dates changed every once in a while and I do not know if there was some sort of an official update schedule that determined how often they switched. I could be wrong, but if I owned two Soviet naval ensigns and one had a single GOST date of 1981 and another had a single GOST date of, say, 1986, I always felt that it would be correct to regard the earlier flag as having been made between 1981 and no later than 1986. If I had a flag with a GOST date of 1981 that showed a second year date of 1983, then the second year, 1983, would have to be the actual year of manufacture. (My choice of dates here is arbitrary and I'm just using them as examples.) This was explained to me by a Russian friend who at one point had dozens and dozens of surplus Cold War era Soviet flags. I'm sorry that I completely forget what the GOST letters actually stood for! Regards P.S. I've never heard anyone explain why some flags have one year date and others have two. I think it varied from year to year and from factory to factory. It may have varied according to whatever the current quotas happened to be a specific factory and what a foreman had to do to successfully (and heroically?) reach his immediate quota. (I think that we've all seen at least one Soviet military hat that was strangely mis-sized at the factory; mis-stamping was obviously a quick way to meet a quota "back in the day").

The pattern is that of the badge awarded to medical officers who received their doctorates at a Russian Universities or at the Imperial Medical Academy. It was first authorized in February of 1871. You've lost a little of one of two snakes but it's still an exceptional find. Congratulations. Could you please show closeups of the hallmarks? Thanks.

Does it have a year of manufacture stamp in addition to the government pattern/standard year stamp that you've shown? Thanks!

Dear Frank, Thank you for this valuable insight. I've been collectiing Russian and Soviet items for almost twenty-five years and i could never make sense of the multitude of znachki souvenir pins that I see nor of the beautifully made unofficial pieces that did not seem to have any true purpose. Frankly, I thought that most were being produced to fleece collectors - particularly foreign collectors. I had no idea that some of this output was driven by Russian collectors who actually enjoy forming collections of these pins. Bol'shoi spasibo! Regards

The more experienced forum members, on seeing the backs of these two ribbons, can certainly offer you good suggestions as to whether the hardware on the reverse offers clues as to age. With regard to the actual ribbon: During the years that I collected Austro-Hungarian orders and medals, I came to the belief that the red dye used in a very large percentage of Austrian ribbon manufactured during WW1 (and maybe even for a few years before) was chemically unstable and prone to shift in color over the decades to some shade of pink. This wasn't completely an issue of "fading" because of sunlight; I was seeing many ribbons that had been stored for decades in boxes or in bureau drawers that had also trurnned pink... So I became suspicious of any medals that were offered to me where the bravery ribbon's "ladder" effect was still bright or relatively dark red. At times, I also noticed that a few dealers were sometimes offering me pristine medals hanging from very dirty but otherwise "unfaded" ribbons - and I soon came to the realization that dirt in and of itself was certainly no measure of authenticity. Back in the day (1960s-80s), I only knew a few collectors of Austrian medals and they all had no problems in replacing dingy or faded ribbons. It always amused me to see them do that because most of these same fellows were also collectors of British campaign medals and replacing those ribbons, of course, was to them tantamount to destroying the Shroud of Turin! Many of the A-H medals those fellows collected are undoubtedly back on the market - and on the replaced ribbons they received thirty or forty years ago... Regards

Photos 2 & 3 A statue commemorating the paratroops is located next to it and perhaps even more impressive, but should appear in another thread some day... Regards

A great collection. If you haven't seen it, here are three photos of the Kursk memorial in front of the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. Regards Photo 1

St. Anne weapons were the 4th or lowest class of the Order, at least when awarded to military personnel for bravery (the order was a specific part of the imperial Russian system of recognizing civil merit and long service; after receiving a first St. Stanislaus cross 3rd Class for faithful service, a civil servant would look forward to receiving a St. Anne 3rd Class cross as his next reward). The progression of awards was sufficiently carved in stone and well enough known that a Russian citizen could look at a government employee's chest and pretty accurately estimate how long he'd been in service... The badge was affixed to the weapon's handle and the Russian words "For Bravery" were engraved there, too, sometimes on the crossguard, sometimes elsewhere. Probably the most common way to attach the enameled St. Anne insignia was to fasten it onto a metal flap that was then applied just under the crossguard, although other places were also used - I once owned a St. Anne's dagger that had the badge attached in the middle of the ivory grip. Considering the premium attached to a sword or dagger for being a St. Anne weapon, I have been told that manufacturing the small insignia has become somewhat frequent in modern Russia. I was at the point of buying an unattached example in gold at the SOS two or three years ago when a Russian friend took me aside and told me that the badges on offer were contemporary copies. Apparently there are even better made insignia available now for disreputable folk to start the process of turning an otherwise plain sword into a St. George sword for bravery! Regards

Whether the date appears has nothing to do with whether or not the cap was ever issued. The vast majority of the caps had the year date applied at the factory. I have seen older general officer's caps that did not have a date, but I think going dateless was probably the exception rather than the rule. Generals were, or so I've always been told, acquiring their headgear through special military outfitters so it's always possible that the factories making their caps could have skipped year dates if they sometimes felt like it... Frankly, were I offered a totally mint Soviet general officer's cap that was undated, I would pass on it just because it seems to me that most post-USSR caps made primarily in the Ukraine have no year date. I would particularly avoid it if also had a two part general's cockade of bright annodized aluminum with red paint rather than real enamel in the star.... If a collector is crazy (or really, really skilled) he can always remove one of the chinstrap buttons to see what date it shows. If it's a WW2/1940s visor cap, however, there's probably no point in messing with it: most year dating on buttons of any size did not start until the very early fifties. Regards

I've been fortunate to examine several dozen examples of Soviet headgear. The presence or absence of a cardboard strip just inside the sweatband cannot really be used to determine much if anything at all. Some caps had them when they came out of the factory, some did not. To improve the fit, some wearers immediately removed the strips while other soldiers, feeling that their caps were too big, cut strips on their own and inserted them. Collectors and dealers have undoubtedly removed or even exchanged strips over the years, particularly if they did not like the condition (looked too new, looked too scruffy). Because they are removable, it is pretty much impossible to tell if a cap without one did have one when it was new - or if a strip now inside a cap was initially placed there in a factory, later on in a barracks, or even eventually in a collector's hobby room... While some hat factories inserted strips to improve the fit and or the look of their caps, I have seen deliberately mislabeled caps that were obviously the result of a Soviet contractor realizing too late that he did not have enough of a given size to make a specific quota; insert a couple of cardboard strips, stamp a different size in the lining, and presto! You've now got the correct number of hats for the next shipment. Regards.

I realize that is is a very old thread, but for the record, the Imperial Russian order of precedence for orders was St. Vladimir, St. Anne and then St. Stanislaus - chances are the ribbon bar on the Russian Hussar captain tunic was put on upside down by an uncertain curator. Ever since I asked a curator at the West Point museum in the early 70s if I could take a closer look at a German tunic with a Hitler Jugend cuff title only to be told told that, oh, they had just fastened the title on with a safety pin to make the D Day exhibit look more impressive, I've been somewhat disinclined to accept any museum display as being automatically "right" - unless the case also has some period photos, too... Regards

The clasp definitely existed and it is referenced in a number of Russian language books that cover the St.George awards; for example, Durov's The Orders of Russia [1993] refers to it as a "metal laurel branch" and the award as "a soldier's cross with a 'bough'" for officers but does not show one. Durov's later book Russian Awards Weapon [1994] does show a color picture of one on page127. I've never seen an actual example of a clasp other than in books or in museum displays in Russia... Regards.

Well, when I lived in Tennessee years ago, I used to set up at the big monthly Nashville Flea Market. Every show I did, I would see old geezers, WW2 vets, coming through and buying absolutely anything with a swastika on it. I started to ask them why and in most cases they said that they were replacing war souvenirs that their wives threw out or or their kids had played with and lost years before. On at least two or three occasions, after the vet died, his family came through the Flea with a cigar box of "Dad's war souvenirs", eager to cash in on them. The first time I tried to explain that they were virtually all fakes, only to have the familiy storm off while exclaiming what a crook I was. After that, I just took a polite look and then said, "Thanks but I'm not interested..." It is curious how a souvenir that's really only sold in Russia wound up mixed in with WW2 stuff! Regards!

It's a current souvenir badge being sold in museum gift shops all over western Russia. There are different versions available with other tsar's profiles - I remember seeing one a few years ago that showed Alexander II. Most of the larger palaces also sell them in their little outdoor kiosks. Regards!

The detailing on the eagle is so very similar to the first one you posted that it seems to me that they almost have to have been made by the same company. I just dug my almost forgotten 1980s London-bought Panasiuk copy out of the bottom of a bureau drawer and presto! It seems to be basically the same as the ones you've just posted. (And, alarmingly, my acknowledged "copy" has toned very nicely in the years since I last paid it any attention to it; small wonder why so many collectors have made an erroneous leap of faith and bought one of these in the early morning light at flea markets.) Regards.

My guess is that it is a Panasiuk copy like the ones that I saw being sold in London in the late Eighties. There were several places where they were being sold back then, including a couple of Polish Officer's clubs (i.e. RAF) that were still functioning. Most people view Panasiuk material (including the regimental badges that they'd sell during the Cold War to western airline personnel for one US dollar bill apiece!) as fakes. That's probably true for the badges, but I do know that in the 80s if you were a Polish vet who'd lost his original medals (or who had never received a certain award that you were entitled to back in the 40s), you could write to the (no longer official) government in exile in London (located, I believe, in the Sikorski Museum building next to the Iranian Embassy), and ask for first issue or replacements; if you did apply, most of what you received were Panasiuk products that the London folk had somehow sourced from the company in Poland. This is why today that you can sometimes come across totally legit WW2 Polish groups that curiously have apparent fakes glaring out from the middle of them. Regards!

Thirty years ago, I knew a collector who had an extensive collection of documents that all belonged to a very high ranking Waffen SS General on Hitler's staff. All legit, all real. He wouldn't consider selling them, but he said that he would only trade them for 19th Century British Guards helmets in mint condition. Back in the 70s & 80s, there were two groups of collectors who really had absolutely nothing in common: Third Reich specialists and those who collected high-end British regalia. As far as I know, he never did manage to do a trade. I'm not about to say that those who collect First and Second Empire militaria are probably not big collectors of American material, but you should probably consider that that possibility exists! Anyway... After fifty-five or sixty years of collecting, I've come to realize that a problem in acquiring 19C French material in the US is this: virtually all of it on this side of the pond has fallen into the hands of antique dealers who have no idea what it is or what its worth. And the vast majority of them will always claim that anything Second Empire is First - either out of ignorance or greed... If I knew of a dealer who could help you, I would gladly post his name. I wish you luck! Mathomhaus

Copies of the St. George crosses seem to have been sold frequently in Russian museum gift shops during the soviet era. They were certainly on sale in many flea markets in Moscow and St. Petersburg when I was there last summer - as were slightly nicer made versions in "high end" gift shops. (As a matter of fact, the State Historical Museum on Red Square was selling copies of virtually all of the Imperial orders; unlike the glass enamel soviet-era bronze-gilt souvenir copies, the ones on sale now all seem to have acyrillic "soft enamel" - i.e. they'll undoubtedly glow "tangerine" under black light.) Most of the souvenir versions of George crosses that I've seen tend to have an obverse that's somewhat bigger than the reverse (or vice versa); so when you look at the edges or the ends of the cross arms you will see a pronounced slant to some of the edges - in other words, the edges are not at right angles to the faces of the cross arms. Jim

I am fortunate to own two of them. If you ever find one that has no chipping whatsoever and no fading to the gold band, you should either be very suspicious or get you wallet out very quickly. The originals were, I believe, all made outside of Russia - probably in Austria-Hungary. An original manufacturer made reproductions of them in the 1990's, I think. For the record: the repros do not have rolled rims and are thus easy to identify. At the time of the coronation, enamelled tin was the "latest thing" in Europe and it made the cups highly desirable. The tin cup was one of only several gifts prepared to be given out to the people who had flooded Moscow to see Nicky's coronation: there were also ceramic cups in several colors and an assortment of scarves with patriotic motifs printed on them. Ten years ago, Hillwood museum had a coronation cup out as part of a coronation display and it was either made of gold or at least heavily gold-plated. It was beautiful. What started the stampede that resulted in the deaths has been frequently reported as a rumor that certain cups that were about to be given out had gold coins hidden in them. Why anyone would have scheduled a large coronation celebration on what was an army obstacle course defies logic - but then, none of the arch-dukes responsible for overseeing the coronation celebrations was ever called to task for the deaths either... Jim

Tim: I have a couple of hot enamel, bronze gilt pieces (St. Stans, St. Annes) with what I personally think are suspect "raised" proofmarks. I will photograph a couple of the hallmarks in question and post them before the week is out. Jim P.S.: One if them is a second class St. Anne with swords that a now deceased friend of mine bought at Manion's Auction in the mid to late '90's. When it arrived after the sale, he was so disgusted with it that his initial impulse was to clip it to his key chain: while it was bronze gilt and did have hard enamel, the sword segments between the arms of the cross were visibly held in place with some sort of clear glue! Interestingly, the overall construction was identical to a bronze gilt example that I'd bought a year before from an emigre dealer at a show in NJ as a supposedly 89 year old late WW I cross! I'm not ceretaind that I still own both examples, if I do I will photo both...