Soviet Medal of Ushakov

NavyFCO · July 24, 2006

Hi Dave,
Very nice groups indeed. But the one with both Ushakov 2266 and Nahimov 11857 (belonged to cmrd. Derbin) has a fake medalbook. Awards themselves are original, but the book is one of those washed-out specimens. So the medals are not his awards, he got only GPW 1 class. If you don't mind I can post the book here and explain why do I think so.

And that may explain why it was never researchable!

I'd love to see the order book close up again, if you have a scan of it.

Since I sold the group originally, I feel responsible for the fact that the book was fake and I feel it my responsibility to offer to buy the group back at the price I sold it for - $950. :beer:

Dave

Mondvor · July 24, 2006

Yes, I do have orderbook scans. I'll post them at the evening (do not have an access to my files at the moment).

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

This is Derbin's orderbook. It's original and problems-free. Sorry for small pictures, that's all I have.

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

And this is Derbin's medal book.

First page.

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

Second page.

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

If you take a look at the medal book you can see that it lost color. Instead of being orange-red color it's almost white. Ink color in all notes looks very pale. It happends when fake makers dilute the ink. They think that notes written with diluted ink look old

Next step. Lets take a look at the stamps "Медалью Ушакова" and "Медалью Нахимова". In real medalbooks Russians never used symbol " " in the stamps of those medals. Here is an example how does the real entry looks like.

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

And one more thing. As you can see, his orderbook for GPW was issued on April 1947. The medalbook was issued 8 month later - in December 1947. Now the question - why they didn't indicate both his medals in the orderbook, but instead they made separate book for the medals? Normally if a person got both orders and medals they all listed in the orderbook together.

And also the medalbook number does not correspond with the date of issue. At the December of 1947 the Б series of medalbook was already in buisness. A 603362 corresponds more to the first part of 1947.

By the way, on February 1945 Derbin already was at the rank of officer. I don't know when he got his officer rank, but from March 1944 (when the medals were issued) to Feruary 1945 (when he was a Lieutenant) passed less than one year. And he got two medals in 11 month! How lucky!!!

But on March 1944 the medal was just issued. First documented event of Ushakov medal being awarded on the Black Sea was on April 20, 1944. So we have less than 10 month...

NavyFCO · July 25, 2006

If you take a look at the medal book you can see that it lost color.

I'll be darned! I never noticed it when I owned the group, which I sold about 4-5 years ago. Guess you learn something new every day! Thanks for the education! :beer:

Dave

Mondvor · July 25, 2006

You are right Dave! I learn something new every day. And mostly I learn it from other collectors. I believe that we can learn a lot from each other. Only through communication and sharing information we can resist to fake makers :beer: