Soviet The Order of the Red Banner

[rboomsma]

Ron, could you post the reverses of yours as well? I allways like to see the mint-mark and the serialnumber, if possible. That would be great.

Here it is, best I got at the moment, just got in the door from a little holiday.

[Guest Alanirvine]

My contribution,

Alan

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[Guest Alanirvine]

The reverse.

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[Guest Alanirvine]

Part of a group. Missing some parts though.

Alan

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[Wild Card]

Hi Alanirvine,

With regard to your post #128 and referring to my declared weakness for ?mirror reverse? pieces in post #83...

[Guest Alanirvine]

Another group. This one probably should be researched.

IMO. These guys were the heros.

Alan

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[Guest Alanirvine]

I enjoy the mirror backs too. They seem to be of another era in the history of the Red Banner.

Alan

Edited May 23, 2006 by Alanirvine

[Guest Alanirvine]

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[Bryan]

Very nice collection Allan! Seems you were at the right place to buy those awards when they came out of the USSR!

[Ed_Haynes]

Another group. This one probably should be researched.

IMO. These guys were the heros.

Alan

[attachmentid=40467]

All are lovely, Alan, but this one is ESPECIALLY so.

Research time!!

[Gerd Becker]

Alan, breathtaking stuff

[Wild Card]

... They seem to be of another era in the history of the Red Banner.

Alan

An excellent point - well said.

[Guest Alanirvine]

Soviet,

I purchased most of what I have about three years ago. Just got cought up with the "bug" so to speak.

I my wife is Ukrainian, so I managed to find a shop in Nikolaev that has many Soviet and German medals.

I purchased a number of them at the time, but later some through ebay when it wasn't such a problem and most through dealers.

Alan

[Mondvor]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for sharing with us. Could you show the second page of Toporkov's orderbook? And if possible, please, tell us what it says on the seal that applied to the picture of recipient.

[Guest Alanirvine]

Andrew, the second page.

Alan

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[Guest Alanirvine]

The seal over the photo.

Alan

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[Chuck In Oregon]

I've got one or two of these that might be worth sharing as being a little bit out of the ordinary.

Here's one. It has some missing enamel on the left side of the flag and a couple of chips on the banner. It doesn't come with an order book, either, but the document it does come with is kind of interesting.

This is the same NKVD general whose five documents I shared previously and offered up on The Bay. Quite unexpectedly, the family came up with this order and document after thinking that they had already sold every other item related to his career. Not only this ORB, but I also bought his very nicely engraved, with a fine Red Star, port-cigar inscribed "Tov. K. P. Vziava from ChK SSRG 1923 g". I sold the documents not that long ago. I 'd like to re-unite this group and I have written to the buyer but he has yet to respond. We never expected to hear from this family again, but no. Sigh.

Enjoy.

Chuck

[Chuck In Oregon]

... And here's the document.

[Mondvor]

The seal over the photo.

Alan

[attachmentid=40532]

Thanks a lot Alan! As I suspected - orderbook is a fake. It is so-called "washed" book. Original entries were removed and substituted for fake ones. I can show many ot those books, but I don't think it is very interesting.

Foto is fake as well. If you carefully look at the seal, you will see that there is a tiny snowflake between the words. Only late seals from 60-80th had that type of symbol. War time seals and early post-war seals all had five-rayed star, not a snowflake. The size of the letters was bigger. I suspect that this particular document was made in Germany, I've seen many of them coming from that country.

[Mondvor]

Another example of fake "washed" book.

First page.

[Mondvor]

Second page

[Guest Alanirvine]

Andrew,

Ouch!

I'll have to see where I purchased the "group". It was definately in the US but it has been at least three years.

Alan

[Dolf]

Andrew,

Ouch!

I'll have to see where I purchased the "group". It was definately in the US but it has been at least three years.

Alan

Alan,

That's one of the reasons why keeping a record of every single piece we buy is very useful on this hobby!

Dolf

[Mondvor]

Most of those "washed" documents appeared more than 5 years ago. This is an "old school technology", so it is no longer used by "black dealers". More recent tactics is to remove the old ink from the paper with a help of a sunlight. The document exposed to direct sun rays for couple of weeks sometimes looks blank. I've seen a Russian dealer who kept several unfolded orderbooks behind his car's windshield. So be aware...

[Mondvor]

Here is an example of a "washed" book with the overdose of the chemicals. Old ink removed OK, but some orderbook's paper natural paint removed as well. This one is easy to detect