Recommendations for reference books

[livesinayurt]

Hello--I'm new to the forum. Many thanks to @Chuck In Oregon for informing me of its existence and inviting me. I've been collecting Soviet stuff for a while, but only gotten into the hobby more seriously for the last two years. I primarily collect medals, orders, and some badges (Deputy badges of the SSR republic supreme soviets are my favorite).

 

I wanted to ask about recommendations for reference books. I currently have copies of Reznik's Soviet Orders and Medals book (for orders/medals) and AVERS8 (for badges) and use Mondvor regularly. Reznik's book is pretty nice, but it doesn't really have any additional information to what is already online at Mondvor. I was considering buying another reference book and am considering getting a copy of AVERS6 (not terribly priced on eBay) or The Comprehensive Guide to Soviet Orders and Medals (quite pricey).

 

Do others on this forum have those books and can provide a recommendation on whether I will get more information than what I already have? Are there any other resources people would recommend? Thanks so much.

 

Jonathan

 

[Alfred]

I think the best resource is Mondvor.narod.ru. itself. The Comprehensive Guide is very good, but on Mondvor are more variants describes and more and better pictures.

 

For badges Avers 8 is a good source.

 

Andreas

[livesinayurt]

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

I think the best resource is Mondvor.narod.ru. itself. The Comprehensive Guide is very good, but on Mondvor are more variants describes and more and better pictures.

 

For badges Avers 8 is a good source.

 

Andreas

Thanks! Good to hear I already am using the best references available. 

[Marcel B.]

I agree, best info is found online. Reznik's book is basically copied from online texts. Mondvor is indeed a great source.

For Orders of Red Star I also use: http://www.odysseus1.freeyellow.com/odysseus/rs.htm

For Orders of Patriotic War I use: http://www.odysseus1.freeyellow.com/odysseus/pw2.htm

Furthermore check forums like this one or https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/ussr-1917-1991/

and good trusted dealers'websites. In particular I want to mention Matt for his excellent photography. There's a lot to learn from his page as well. https://www.sovietorders.com

 

 

Edited November 14 by Marcel B.

[Megan]

Welcome to the happy throng!

 

I don't think I can add much to the recommendations above. A lot of the early stuff has gone now.

 

A.G. Bates had a wonderful site at https://soviet-awards.com/  - the images seem to have vanished, although the text remains. Go back a few years on the Wayback Machine and at least some of the images remain. This link is to 2019  https://web.archive.org/web/20190329165023/http://soviet-awards.com/ ... it hadn't been updated recently.

 

Really going back in time, there's also  https://web.archive.org/web/20010518173448/http://members.aol.com/sovietuk/ - a site that has translated a lot of statutes for different awards into English - we're back to 2001 here!

 

If you read Russian, another early site that's now gone is https://web.archive.org/web/20020330125740/http://www.mondvor.iptelecom.net.ua/  this dates back to 2002. (Hint here if you don't read Russian, Google translate and the Wayback Machine don't work well together but if you use the Firefox browser, it has a built-in translator which will work with archived sites - it's not as good as Google, but you'll usually get the gist of what has been written!).

[livesinayurt]

Thanks @Marcel B. for the recommendations for those sites specifically on the ORS and OGPW. Those are great! I’ve bought stuff from Matt before— even though the prices are not cheap, it’s nice buying and being confident about authenticity.  I’ve also communicated with him over email—he’s a really helpful reference at confirming originality and I really appreciate the quality of his photos.

 

Thanks to @Megan as well. Even though they are older references they are still helpful. I do read Russian reasonably well. Was this site ( https://web.archive.org/web/20020330125740/http://www.mondvor.iptelecom.net.ua/) an earlier home of the current Mondvor site (https://mondvor.narod.ru). They look nearly identical at a glance. 
 

Thanks again for the recommendations and for the warm welcome to the community. 

[Eric Gaumann]

Welcome.  In addition to the others already mentioned Shishkov and Muzalevsky's 'Orders and Medals of the USSR' is a nice, 2 volume set.  I also recommend Paul Schmitt's 'Echoes of War'.  Both are helpful for dating serial numbers in addition to the usual ID-ing of variations and such.

[Marcel B.]

'Echoes of war' is indeed a very nice book!