Soviet Why do you collect communist orders and medals?

[Bryan]

I am curious to know why are you are all interested in collecting communist orders and medals?

[Riley1965]

I collect them because of 1. The research and 2. Many Orders are beautiful and well crafted. And 3. There are so many Orders and Medals types and variations to collect. It's mainly because I can get the research and find out about the recipient. That's the same reason i collect British ODMs.

Doc

[Paul R]

I was attracted to the Soviet medals and orders because of their beauty and associated history. Since I was a junior rank in the military, most were very obtainable for me. That was a huge plus!

Now... there is no way I would ever be able to touch a lot of what I have residing in my collection! I just wish I had grabbed more! I wanted an Alexander Nevsky, but 250 dollars was too expensive ... now... that will not happen.

[order_of_victory]

I collect Soviet Medals because of there symbollism and idolgical signifficance in the former USSR

But as the money is running out and pthe prices are getting higher I am getting more into researching them

Order of Victory

[hunyadi]

Being a Cold War Kid - this was my fathers war and in a way mine as well - having nightmares about nuclear holocausts...these guys were the enemy. Now I teach their kids English and have long converstations with their parents and we all laugh...

But I echo alot of the previous statements - the quality is far superior that the medals and badges dad got, the hisotry, and yes the research potential - though Hungary is a tough nut to crack the research field.

[Guest Rick Research]

I too am a former child of the Cold War. My second month in school was spent under a desk practicing the absurdly ineffective anti-nuclear blast "drills" of those days.

I was always an "elderly" child, having played among the detritus and leavings of the two World Wars, but the Cold War was Current Events as I grew up.

For those too young to have lived through the 1970s (congratulations of a dubious sort as we all relive them starting next month) that was a nadir when-- incredible as this may seem now-- Leonid Brezhnev actually believed that he was WINNING that "war"-- and so did far too many lifetime political hacks in the west still unfortunately on the global stage and still at their stock in trade of premature surrender, appeasement, and historical blindness.

From surrogate conflicts, and the annual flight of "Bears" over my coastline, came a respect for Soviet "Vlast," and my historian's curiosity as to how and why that system worked, as long as it did and--until the very end-- seemingly as well as it did.

As for collecting, the disappearaance of affordable Imperial German items not already in my collection in the mid 1990s, the appearance of post-Union awards that had NEVER been available before, and the sheer lustrous beauty of Soviet enamelwork drew me in. that was before any research became possible.

And of course, if any nation and any people deserve the credit for holding a line against global tyranny, it is the peoples of the former Soviet Union. Researching their awards for wartime heroism is an honor, I hope, to their memory.

And an example to a generation of Vichyites of self-sacrifice and determination sadly lacking in today's western world.

[Ed_Haynes]

I too am a former child of the Cold War. My second month in school was spent under a desk practicing the absurdly ineffective anti-nuclear blast "drills" of those days.

I was always an "elderly" child, having played among the detritus and leavings of the two World Wars, but the Cold War was Current Events as I grew up.

For those too younfg to have lived through the 1970s (congratulations of a dubious sort as we all relive them starting next month) that was a nadir when-- incredible as this may seem now-- Leonid Brezhnev actually believed that he was WINNING that "war."

From surrogate conflicts, and the annual flight of "Bears" over my coastline, came a respect for Soviet "Vlast," and my historian's curiosity as to how and why that system worked.

As for collecting, the disappearaance of affordable Imperial German items not already in my collection in the mid 1990s, the appearance of post-Union awards that had NEVER been available before, and the sheer lustrous beauty of Soviet enamelwork drew me in. that was before any research became possible.

And of course, if any nation and any people deserve the credit for holding a line against global tyranny, it is the peoples of the former Soviet Union. Researching their awards for wartime heroism iss an honor, I hope, to their memory.

And an example to a generation of Vichyites of self-sacrifice and determination sadly lacking in today's western world.

As usual, Rick pretty much sums it up for me too.

The research capability makes much of the interest here, making Soviet awards (numbered) closer to my "first love", Indo-British awards (named). If you can't (don't) research it, it is just a pretty thing.

[Belaruski]

Rick, that's beautifuly put.

I would like to add that the ideals of the fledgling Soviet Union were so inspiring too.

No matter how it turned out, the whole 'brave new world' is a fascinating part of history.

[Gerd Becker]

I am fascinated by the Red Army as an Army, which developed from very bad to unbeatable under an immense pressure during the GPW.

I am not as old as Mr. Methusalem Research , but i am also a child of the cold war, even if i only saw the last years of it, i still remember it very well.

And beside the beauty of soviet orders and medals another reason, why i collect them, are of course the research-possibilities.

[PAB]

I am too new to give you a deep seated why I now collect Soviet Awards but first my friend Belaruski is part to blame. I have for a long time collected and do German helmets it has been my passion. But it is so expensive now and then you have your shelfs full where do you go swap one for one in better condition most do,until they have a collection of very high great condition helmets . But I was always different ,the helmets that give me most pleasure are those with battle scars ,have seen combat maybee named, even unit marked ,or even a field post marked, these are rare. The fact Soviet awards can be traced to an individual, his service records and heroics, make it so much more personal and rewarding and has emphasised the things that make me a collector of historical items like these.( Its more the history and the person behind than the item) I would say also I have great respect for the combatants of all sides as now they rest side by side iin my collecting room in peace. Pete

[Christian Zulus]

Gentlemen,

I collect Soviet Awards for all the excellent reasons mentioned in the postings at this thread - and for 2 reasons more:

- my scientific interest in the history of the CCCP - focusing on the period 1927 to 1991 and

- in the mid 1990s I obtained my "crown jewels" really cheap - today the prices are out of reach ...

Best regards

Christian

[Eric Schena]

Hi all:

I hope I'm not too late to this thread, nut thought I would add my thoughts on "why". Some of this I wrote in response to a smilar question as to "why Albania", but I think it makes sense in this context, too, so please forgive any repetition :-)

I grew up as an Air Force brat in the 70s and 80s and lived on several military installations growing up. Like Rick mentioned above, we all did the old "Air Raid siren - get under your schooldesk that will somehow miraculously save you from an incoming MIRV strike" drill. I also remember seeing those newsreels from the May Day parades in Moscow with all those medal-festooned leaders standing up on Lenin's Mausoleum and always found that fascinating. When the USSR started to open up in the late 80's and their decorations started to come out, being a coin collector for the vast majority of my life, I naturally started to collect them, especially since they were before a mystery. I've always been interested in the less well traveled collecting paths - going down well-trod paths does not lend itself to adventure or the possibility of the thrill of discovery. I had just started going to college, so I could not get all the decorations I would have wanted (Hero of the USSR and Hero of Socialist Labor eluded me then and now even more so), but I did pull together what I think is a nice little representative collection. When I finally visited Moscow in January 1992 (what a time to go there ), I made a point of telling the tour guide I wanted to go see Lenin's Mausoleum. Even though she didn't initially understand ("Why would you want to go there? It's just a dead guy in a glass case"), once I explained it's because we grew up with that image as one of the few things I ever saw of Moscow during the Cold War, she understood and I got to wait in that infamous line - but that's a story for another day.

Once prices started to go sky high for Soviet medals in the past 5 or so years, I looked at the other Cold War "boogeymen": Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Mongolia, and Yugoslavia. This now forms the core of my collection.

Then there was Albania - a mystery if there ever was any even more than a decade after the fall of comunism.

Finally, a couple of years ago, someone was offering a couple of Albanian medals (an Order "Red Star" and a Bravery Medal) and immediately got them. Then I started to try to research these things to find out any kind of info on them. That's when I found out there was next to nothing on them in the usual literature and what was there was wildly contradictory (look at the thread on the Order "Red Star" below for an example of that), plus they were only collected as curiosities of a bizarre Stalinist holdout and not treated in any scholarly manner. It also didn't help that until the collapse of communism in 1992, Albania refused to release any info on their honors at all. So, I started collecting info even more voraciously than the medals themselves to get to the bottom of it. That info collection formed the basis for my modest monograph on them. In addition, I strongly recommend reading up on Albanian history, in particular 20th century history and you'll rapidly find out how tortured that poor nation has been through its history, the wild characters (Zog and Hoxha in particular), the weird events, all sorts of stuff that is sadly neglected in the West. Many might find the challenge daunting but I have found it immensely rewarding and a whole lot of fun! My only hope is that somehow my little book helps to right some misconceptions about their decorations and in some cases (particularly the WW II medals) shed some light on the sacrifices that nation has had to make through its history.

So I guess in short, it's a little about my childhood and my love of the unknown which is why I collect what I do.

Cheers,

Eric

[Wild Card]

As usual Rick, you have expressed my thoughts and reasons better than I could have.

Thank you.

Wild Card