Soviet Soviet Coast Guard Flag(KGB Naval Border Guard)

[Paul R]

A collecting friend referred me to this beauty on Ebay a week or so ago. I came home from a work trip to find this waiting for me.

It will compliment this uniform well:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/53014-soviet-coast-guard-falls-under-the-kgb/

[Paul R]

The stamping...

[Mathomhaus]

Does it have a year of manufacture stamp in addition to the government pattern/standard year stamp that you've shown?

Thanks!

[Paul R]

This is the only stamp that I saw on the flag. I think it is dated 1981, per the stamp above. I will look to see if I missed something. Are there normally two stamps?

Paul

[Mathomhaus]

As I have understood it, the "GOST" date does not show the actual year that a flag was made but the year that the pattern being used was either initially authorized or reauthorized by the contracting authorities of the Soviet government/military. The dates changed every once in a while and I do not know if there was some sort of an official update schedule that determined how often they switched.

I could be wrong, but if I owned two Soviet naval ensigns and one had a single GOST date of 1981 and another had a single GOST date of, say, 1986, I always felt that it would be correct to regard the earlier flag as having been made between 1981 and no later than 1986. If I had a flag with a GOST date of 1981 that showed a second year date of 1983, then the second year, 1983, would have to be the actual year of manufacture. (My choice of dates here is arbitrary and I'm just using them as examples.)

This was explained to me by a Russian friend who at one point had dozens and dozens of surplus Cold War era Soviet flags. I'm sorry that I completely forget what the GOST letters actually stood for!

Regards

P.S. I've never heard anyone explain why some flags have one year date and others have two. I think it varied from year to year and from factory to factory. It may have varied according to whatever the current quotas happened to be a specific factory and what a foreman had to do to successfully (and heroically?) reach his immediate quota. (I think that we've all seen at least one Soviet military hat that was strangely mis-sized at the factory; mis-stamping was obviously a quick way to meet a quota "back in the day").

Edited June 13, 2012 by Mathomhaus

[Paul R]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I will take a closer look when I get back home, on Thursday. Very interesting stuff.

[JapanX]

Allow me to help you Gents

This ГОСТ means

ГОСТ 8498-81 Флаги и вымпелы специальные.

Общие технические условия

01.01.1982

действующий

Название (англ.): Special marine flags. General technical requirements

Область применения: Настоящий стандарт распространяется на флаги и вымпелы специальные, применяемые на морских, речных судах и кораблях

http://gost.ruscable.ru/cgi-bin/catalog/catalog.cgi?f1=8498-81&x=48&y=10

It is fully searchable source.

Regards,

Nick

[Paul R]

Thank you Nick. Can you please summarize in English? :)

[JapanX]

Generally it says that this ГОСТ is still active.

Here we have full text

http://www.gosthelp.ru/gost/gost7762.html

If you'll need help with translation of any part - just ask

Cheers,

Nick

[Paul R]

Thank you Nick! I do appreciate it. So the ГОСТ is still making flags?

[JapanX]

In some sense Paul

You see essentially ГОСТ = State standard specification (in case of flags we are talking about material, size, etc ...)

Yes, this old soviet state standard for flags is still in use in modern Russia and every firm that manufacture flags should comply with it.

Cheers,

Nick

Edited June 14, 2012 by JapanX