Hungary Hungarian Drivers Badge

[Hauptmann]

Hi all,

Here's what I understand is a very special and rare piece. First off... a pic from the Hungarian regulations courtesy of Charles (Hunyadi):

Now... a bit of the story. I accidently stumbled on this one in a search on Ebay several days ago. It was not in the Hungarian section nor was it ID'd as Hungarian. It was actually listed with a WWII German Drivers badge. Here's how they were listed:

2 WWII RUSSIAN/SOVIET UNION LABOR? MEDALS TRUCK/WHEEL

I waited a couple of days but then when chatting with Charles I asked him to check it out and confirm for me if the one was indeed Hungarian as I thought it was. Well, he checked it out and then seemed rather astonished by the piece. He then explained that it's like super rare and that he'd never seen one in the flesh or even a picture save the one above from the regs. This totally threw me for a loop. Here I was thinking it was probably a very common Hungarian badge and nothing out of the ordinary.

So we waited... and prayed... and kept our fingers tightly crossed till the appointed day when the auction ended... today (Friday). And in the meantime it got a bid! Then another. But we held firm. We had a plan... up to yay amount it's mine... above that it's Charles. I put in the bid with 45 seconds left.

Needless to say the smoke cleared and I was left standing... with Charles by my side! And I think I did extremely well coming in well below the maximum I had set... and believe me that's an understatement.

[Hauptmann]

And now... without further ado... the star of the show:

The obverse:

And the reverse:

I apologize for the small size of the pics. They are the sellers. But I promise as soon as it arrives I'll do better scans and pop them on.

Needless to say we were both thrilled when I won. From what I gather this is probably by far the rarest item of Hungarian militaria in my collection.

I had intended to include the regulations for this badge but sadly I lost them accidently after Charles had been kind enough to type them in and send them over and he'd popped off before I could get him to resend them. So hoping he'll be able to pop them on and include any additional comments he'd like on this neat little piece.

Yet again God has seen fit to smile down on me and grant me another great piece for my collection. Thank you God! And many thanks to my good friend Charles without whom I'd have never known this one was anything other than just another common badge.

Dan

[Hauptmann]

Hi all,

Well, the Drivers Badge arrived so just did my own scans:

Obverse:

Closeup of star:

[Hauptmann]

Closeup of truck:

Reverse:

Dan

[hunyadi]

I am hopeing someone can help me who is more proficient on this than I.... what kind of truck did they model off of this? Csepel, ZIS, ZIL, Ural???????? Its driving me crazy! I have found a photo of one on a site which says 'Csepel' but none of the Csepel trucks at the time look like this!!!!

Help - my head hurts!

[ilja559]

Truck catalog-

http://www.33gruzovika.ru/encyclopedia/c/535-2.html

[hunyadi]

Thanks for the link! I was able this weekend to find a book - the best match to the truck is a Csepel 350 series.

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

Endless research!! Seems like we will never come to an end. Sent a couple of pics to you this morning that may be of use. I'll bring the two badges with me tomorrow in case you haven't seen them in the "flesh". (not a type from this thread) Are there any more of this series of badges that you have found in the regulations that do not appear in our reference book other than the drivers badge?

Cheers,

Gordon

[hunyadi]

Yes - there is endless research - actully the book that we have (Xerox) has all the badges 'listed' but not all of them illustrated. So that actually has more in it than the regulations have. I think probably about 25% of the badges never had a regulation published - OR - they were published in 1955.... but where is the regulations from 1955.....hush, hush....

[cimbineus]

Hello Gents,

This is a very interesting topic too. Not too much reference books are available on Hungarian qualification badges. This is the "Excellent Driver" badge instituted in 1950, but three more badges belong to this group, namely: "Excellent Transportation Officer", "Excellent Gas Supplier" and "Excellent Technician". Here they are:

(My guess is that the depicted truck is most probably not a Csepel D350, because the production of that truck started half a year later, at the end of 1950.

Regards,

cimbineus

[Gordon Craig]

cimbineus,

Very nice photos of these badges. I have never seen them in real life before. Thanks very much for posting them.

Regards,

Gordon

[ilja559]

Nice badges !