Soviet What am I missing? A neophyte wonders...

[Stogieman]

I don't know Soviet stuff, but the endless slavish devotion of The (Truly) Evil Ricky has me wondering what am I missing? Now I recently cruised arounf eBay and saw some interesting pieces. here's an early style suspension OGPW 1. Klasse. Apart from the obvious enamel damage, this piece went for a fraction of what I have seen similar pieces (asking prices mind you) on dealer websites. Keep in mind these are not mine, just lifted from eBay. The piece looks pretty good to me. the suspenion ring on top looks right,number in right place, looks like good engraving. The piece sold for under $600

What am I missing??

[Stogieman]

Same guy had this one, the regular (??) screw-back variation. I thought this one looked pretty good... with my only question being the nut looks a little large? Sold for under $300. Same buyer as above.

What an I missing?

[Stogieman]

Now here's where things really made me sit up. Looks like screw-post (??) Red Star, very low number. As I flipped around this star went from ~$200 to a GRAND, where it sold. Again, same buyer.....

what am I missing??

[Stogieman]

OK, so I've learned a little...... no where near enough....... and again, I see very early & rare medal in what looks like way beyond usual Soviet quality/finish and it's a pretty rare medal. Even without the chains. Closed just under $700 to (big surprise) same bidder.

What am I missing??

[Stogieman]

And his final lot that I thought was interesting. Pair of medals, old style suspension but wrong discs (??), no enamel and book looks like it was soaked and new names/numbers jotted in to match the 2 crappy medals?? Sold to (different) buyer for ~$260. I didn't think these were right at all.

What am I missing??

[Stogieman]

Now, to my very uneducated eyes, I thought the 2 OGPW's were OK, the star OK, but not the medals.

How did I do?

[Gerd Becker]

Well, lets say, you know Imperial Flightbages better Just kidding, i would be happy with a fraction of your knowledge

Considering the seller, these are all crap. These are either doctored pieces (like the Red-Star, i suppose) or pieces from scrap-metal. They have become very good to fake these, so you have to look for tiny details nowadays and cannot judge from a picture.

The Nakhimov-Medal has not enough detail and i don?t like the ring at all.

The Red-Star is probably a later one, which has the Serialnumber replaced. The back seems to have not enough patina for such an old piece IMO. Neither i like the maker-mark nor the style of the serial-number. Also, the screwpost looks a bit strange.

The screwback OGPW may be ok, but again, considering the source...

I highly doubt, the suspension OGPW is a legit piece either. Same goes for the group, may be ok, but only a close inspection would tell for sure.

You better avoid this dealer, Rick. He sold a lot of crap in the past.

best,

Gerd

[NavyFCO]

I've got some bad feelings about some of the medals you posted, but I'll let some of the better-eyed fake detectors among us make the call on them (Rusty, your turn!)

I will comment on the screwback OGPW1st though... Selling for under $300 is about right. I buy them for $250 each, and have close to 20 in my collection at the moment waiting for research. I would not have bid on this one because it looks like the back of the gold starburst was polished down and renumbered. On all of the ones I have (and the 50+ that I've owned in the past) all of the gold has had some texture to it on the back - and this one appears to have none. The hanging OGPW is bad... I don't like a lot of things about that one.

With regard to the Nakhimov medal, if anything I don't like the numbers on it for starters. Of course, I haven't had one in my collection for over a year, but I've owned a lot of these in the past and none with numbers like that. And if it sold for anywhere under $1000, you know it's bad - these normally run in the $1200 neighborhood. By the way, the one with the chains that you mention is the Ushakov medal - which runs about $200 above the Nakhimov.

Now for the two medals, I don't have too much of a problem with the group. I'd need to see better scans of it, but it's about what I'd expect from a group like that. Of course, I wouldn't buy it unless I had the chance to return it if the research came back bad... I've seen groups that had very good fake documents even back seven and eight years ago.

One rule of thumb buying Soviet medals on eBay... Real ones tend to realize market prices or more, and the fact that most of these here sold for under market value should put up red flags everywhere.

Just my two cents.

Dave

Edited November 23, 2005 by NavyFCO

[Stogieman]

Well, like I said... Neophyte and what am I missing. The thing that surprises me is that with so little real "open market" time since the collapse of the CCCP as opposed to the 100+ years of research, faking, etc. with other countries.... is just how much really bad, altered, weird, funny, just plain dubious stuff floating around the market place in such a short time!!

A minefield for sure.

[Ed_Haynes]

It is, I think, almost as bad as the Third Reich stuff, and in some cases more dangerous, as we are closer in time to the availability of "raw materials" for medals, documents, and groups, and there is MUCH money in teh Old Country to acquire top-end items.

I think the reliability of the dealer is paramount, guarantees, and the ability to get "Paul Papers" are the best safety net we can arrange.

[Guest Rick Research]

Pssst! Evil Ricky is a neophyte pass it on!!!!

I don't care for the Orders Book because the privileges begin 1 December 1944-- and the serial numbers do not jibe with that as an initial calendar month following first award by the serial numbers: both medals have December 1942-January 1943 numbers. Early suspension medals... wrong serial number range for that privileges begin date well over a year past the suspension changeover--nixes upon nixes. The entries are nonsense.

In the past I heard a lot about this sort of "cooked" Books with original entries soaked off and forgeries replacing them, but ever actually encountered any-- I suppose because GOOD ones were so plentiful (and cheap... then).

So whether these are mid-1990s mistakes being put back into the market to bite a new generation of the unwary, or current productions, I don't know. But I have seen several of these quite recently-- and what they have in common is "wet" splotchy covers and extremely rusted staples on the pages. These Books are often well worn and ratty--ORIGINALS, that is-- but THESE look as if they have been fished out of storm drains.

Whenever I see what amounts to ALL the suspect stuff together, my hackles rise.

I keep telling my Evil Twin (there have been dark and viciously unconfirmed rumors of thespianism as well, not to spread tales ) that you shouldn't take candy from strangers

and there are as many "strange" Soviet purveyors out there as dubious (to be charitable) Third Reich sellers.

[HuliganRS]

Dave,

Thanks for putting me on the spot

Here's what I see:

OGPW1 on suspension is BAD. The suspension is fake. The ring is fake. Heat damage from adding the star burst. The pin on reverse is also not right.

OGPW1 screwback is weird. The new thing over the pond is gold starburst removal and addition of bronze one. This one may be the reciepient of that transplant. The gold doesn't look just right. There's enamel damage. The back of the star is gold plated why? Screw holding the 2 together is bad.

Red Star is a bad convertion to the rare and expensive "MonDvor" mint mark. The mint mark is bad but the S/N is getting better but still not right. The star is original but not to this S/N range. The give away is the shape of the star and how it flares.

Nakhimov medal is bad without looking at the S/N Pay attention to the details of he ship and his eye!

Unless this is some Mongolian Nakhimov it's not right. The rest is not even worth discussing!

Suspension group looks put together. The suspensions are probably bad but with these pics who knows. The Names & S/N entries are nice and legible but the rest looks water damaged! Water must have missed the important page! Right! screwplates are not correct. The medals themselves are good but the rest...

That should do it from me...

Rusty.

Soon to be a full blooded member!!!

Edited November 23, 2005 by HuliganRS

[NavyFCO]

Dave,

Thanks for putting me on the spot

It's 'cause I love you man!

Seriously, Rusty, you bring up a good point about the starburst on the screwback OGPW. Note the lack of detail on the tip of the rifle barrel amongst other spots... Looks like it was cast recently and poorly to boot!

Here's a scan of some from my collection in various states of wear. You can see that they all have much more detail than this one.

Dave

[HuliganRS]

It's 'cause I love you man!

Right back at ya!

That's alot of gold you got there!!!

You aren't planning on re-doing your teeth with all that bling?

That reminds me of a story I heard about a guy buying Orders of Lenin to re-do a few teeth with the platinum from the bust.

I keep telling people to buy from people you trust! These can be costly mistakes.

Rusty.

[Stogieman]

In my continuing theme of "what am I missing"....... I will say in some cases, this is what I am not missing. A rather well done, but cast copy of the Suwarow on a "early style" suspension. Yuck......

[HuliganRS]

Rick,

That doesn't look cast. Maybe it's me.

Any more pics of it?

Rusty.

[Stogieman]

Hi Rusty, here's the back

[Stogieman]

And a close-up of the center:

[NavyFCO]

There are a couple "classic" bad groups on eBay currently. These are groups that have the bad order books that started coming out of Russia in the mid- to late 90s. Basically, someone would take an order book with one or two awards entered, and then enter in a bunch of other awards. Normally the awards would be good, but the group overall would be 100% bad. Back in "the day" this was a good way to pick up awards for under market value as a lot of people wouldn't touch the group, but if you wanted to split it up there was quite a bit of money in the awards themselves. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Collection-of-Soviet-O...goryZ10954QQrdZ 1QQcmdZViewItem

Buyer beware!

Dave

Edited January 9, 2006 by NavyFCO

[Guest Rick Research]

Remember: Decorations listed must have the FIRST agree with the "privileges start" line and the ones entered when the Book was made out should be the same entries. Here is an eCrap offering with NO awards making sense, and idiotically 1950s-60s dates on the WW2 awards making up this phony "group"

[attachmentid=22214]

Something as egregiously awful as this shouldn't be fooling anybody!

[HuliganRS]

Rick,

Your "group" is th same one Dave posted.

Crap, Crap, Crap.

Rusty.

[Guest Rick Research]

Yes, but this way the scan will "outlive" the auction and is, I think, a useful learning tool for new collectors. Links to eBay auctions once they are over are gone forever and then nobody knows what was being talked about.

We "first generation" collectors already had our fingers burned when the first garbage like this came out 10 years ago. I haven't seen any of it since until this past year and now the stuff is flooding back onto the market again.

WE didn't and couldn't know any better, but now there is so much more data available on when serial numbers were actually awarded and how Books were filled out that this sort of thing is laughable-- to us Old Guys from the "early days"... but not to the new generation of collector who doesn't know what we've learned the hard way already. If we can save them from reinventing the wheel of the learning curve all over again, then junk like this should go back under the rocks from whence it came.

What a waste of poor old original Orders Books!!!!

[Stogieman]

Told you! You should have posted the OTHER group as well with the 1946 Orders Book in screwy-order as well! To me, after the fraud thing........ he's using real pieces, so there's a multitude of broken groups being destroyed to make crap. And what happens to the poor schlub who's spent 3 years searching for that ORB from 1944 that he NEEDS to complete a REAL group????

Now he has to decide shall I butt heads to complete what's right against thief sellers and moron buyers??

[Gerd Becker]

Thanks for the heads up. I had them on my watch list, although i probably would not have bid on them because the order book looked wrong somehow to me. The value of the single medals is close to the market value, so it doesn?t make much sense to bid on them though.

Gerd