Soviet Finally Got My Avers-8

[Chuck In Oregon]

I just got back last night from a month in Tbilisi. Things there are pretty tense these days and, as always, pretty screwed up, but this isn't the place for that conversation.

Among the new treasures I brought home was the Avers-8 that I paid for last May. It had to come down from Moscow for me to pick up in Georgia on my then-next visit. It wasn't yet available when I was in Moscow in Oct. 2007. I paid $300 for it back in May and a friend brought it to Tbilisi for me as a favor during my absence. I hear they're going for around $250 now so if you waited you saved some money IF you can still find one. I also heard that they are no longer generally available.

That is certainly a high price for a badge book but this is one heck of a badge book. It purports to be both a catalog and valuation of Soviet badges from 1917-1980 although it includes some late-era badges as well. It is BIG book, full-size, hard-bound and 736 numbered pages, It is very nicely made, good cover (although it is so big that the binding needed to be even stronger than it is), high-quality glossy paper, great photos. It has some illustrations where original examples could not be produced. They are helpful and there aren't too many for my taste. It includes 3,793 numbered photos and illustrations and many additional un-numbered photos and illustrations in support of the topics at hand. This includes gramotas and photos of people wearing the badges shown in that particular section. I really like that touch. There are excellent photos of reverses and screwplates as well but some of us might have wanted even more of those. The book also has some excellent supporting data and information that goes beyond just dates of manufacture, but even those are very helpful.

The book includes hat badges as well, which I like. I have, for instance, an NKVD gulag guard's hat badge which I hadn't seen depicted elsewhere, raising my doubts as to its authenticity. This book has a great photo of one (item 1855a.) that confirms it is what I thought it is. Nice. I would have liked more badges from the republics. That would have added a lot but it was probably just too much to include in a book already this big. I know there is a comprehensive book out there somewhere but I've only seen one once and it wasn't for sale.

As for values, I just don't know. Earlier Avers catalogs were said to have listed notoriously low-ball prices. These prices don't seem to me to be way out of line, with this caveat: My guess is that this book, dated only "Moscow 2008" went to print in late 2007 or so. Prices were high and climbing then and this book may have bet a little bit on a continued rise in prices. Like everyone else, they didn't foresee an economic downturn or a general flattening or pullback in the prices of Soviet collectibles. The prices in this book may actually tend toward the high side as opposed to many observations of previous Avers editions.

That's about it for the book. If anyone has any questions I'll try my best to answer them for you. Once I get my latest purchases cataloged I'll share some of them here as well. You're going to like them, I'm sure.

Chuck

[Ed_Haynes]

Thanks for this, Chuck. I had been wondering. Now I wonder no more.

Mine is "in the UPS". Thanks again.