POLAND cross MILI TARI VIR TUTI

[KDVR]

Hello friends

Help needed: which period, type? original? value?

THANK YOU!

[Mathomhaus]

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!

[stanislaw]

This could be a private issue prewar. The more desirable VMs are the Govt issued numbered ones. There were also private issued replacement ones.

If this is a correct pre war private issue, maybe its worth 100 plus. There were also copies made like from Panasiuk. I can not tell if this is a private issue or a copy

sorry that is all the help I can say. Maybe you post on ebay and see what occurs?

Stan

Hello friends

Help needed: which period, type? original? value?

THANK YOU!

[KDVR]

Hello friends

What is your opinion about this cross?

Thank you and best wishes

KDVR

[KDVR]

.

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

Hmmm... to me it looks like a cheap copy of the early (Polish-Soviet war era) type. The shiny and, sorry having to say this, quite poor finish makes it totally incredible.

[Mathomhaus]

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.