Soviet 3 Place Labor Medal Bar

[NavyFCO]

Dave - You are right those days must have been truely glorious and interesting from the stand point of getting a shipment in then spending the hours researching the medals before grouping them.

It was a wonderful time!

The group in the second photo (with the order of Lenin) turned out to be two groups (I didn't notice that when I first posted it!) Here's a link to the group after it was reunited with it's original hangers and researched. All of the documents later came in several various envelopes!

http://www.forvalor.com/s112.htm

Dave

[Ralph P]

Dave - Thanks for the additional information from your website. Very well done and informative even the part about his drawbacks and conclusion...

It was a wonderful time!

The group in the second photo (with the order of Lenin) turned out to be two groups (I didn't notice that when I first posted it!) Here's a link to the group after it was reunited with it's original hangers and researched. All of the documents later came in several various envelopes!

http://www.forvalor.com/s112.htm

Dave

[Soviet]

I also re-ribboned a lot of legit groups.
...
So if you wonder why some groups have nice clean ribbons......

I don't know why you did that back then. I could somehow understand for medals that didn't have any hanger, but I hope you didn't just reribbon, just because it looked more appealing for you. What a heresy to change old original ribbon and throw them to replace new ribbons!

I'd never dare doing this! I have one of your previous groups in my collection and I was pretty sure it was changed by a collector and not by the veteran.

Too bad that it will never be in the original condition as the vet wore them.

[NavyFCO]

Soviet-

I think you've misunderstood. The only groups that I reribboned were ones where the ribbons never came with them, so they had to be "rebuilt" with new hangers and ribbons. Often this was because the hangers and ribbons would be kept/lost/misplaced/lost in the mail enroute from Russia. If a group had original ribbons, I never changed them.

In fact, I was one of the first in this country to encourage people NOT to change the original ribbons. I have a close friend who to this day will replace the ribbons on the groups and then polish the medals, even as much as I have tried to convince him to not do that. Needless to say, as much as I am friends with him, I will not buy from him. Interestingly, to his mind, he is actually HONORING the veteran by cleaning their awards in order to preserve them....

I will admit that I "built" a lot of groups (for display, never for deception) that people paid me to build for them. They would buy the medals, I would mount them and they would pay me for my time and materials. None of those were original groups though; they were all single awards.

Dave

I don't know why you did that back then. I could somehow understand for medals that didn't have any hanger, but I hope you didn't just reribbon, just because it looked more appealing for you. What a heresy to change old original ribbon and throw them to replace new ribbons!

I'd never dare doing this! I have one of your previous groups in my collection and I was pretty sure it was changed by a collector and not by the veteran.

Too bad that it will never be in the original condition as the vet wore them.

[NavyFCO]

I don't know why you did that back then. I could somehow understand for medals that didn't have any hanger, but I hope you didn't just reribbon, just because it looked more appealing for you.

Since I'm rather distraught by the accusatory tone of your post, let me cut and paste my original post here:

I also re-ribboned a lot of legit groups. Back in 2000/2001/2002 I was getting three to four nice groups PER MONTH out of Russia and Ukraine (I could buy all that I had money for, and I often had to pass on groups simply because I ran out of money!) and many of these were smuggled out without the kolodki (the hangers) on the medals. Sometimes the hangers would show up, most of the time they would be kept by the seller. Even when they did show up, sometimes the ribbons would be stripped off of them! So almost all of these had to be remounted. I always tried to wait for the legit hangers, but sometimes they would never show up so I had to replace them with ones that I had in my parts box. So if you wonder why some groups have nice clean ribbons......

Please read the entire paragraph. I have highlighted a few lines that you obviously did not read. Please especially note the underlined portion. From that, I don't understand how you could think I reribboned groups just for aestetic purposes.

Considering that I was encouraging people NOT to reribbon original groups long before 95% of the people on this forum had even THOUGHT about collecting Soviet awards, I think it's ironic that you should take an accusatory stance.

Dave

[John F.]

As far as I am concerned I consider all Soviet Medal Bars put togeter unless they come with documentation.

[NavyFCO]

As far as I am concerned I consider all Soviet Medal Bars put togeter unless they come with documentation.

John-

I think that's a great way to look at it!

Dave

[Soviet]

Hello Dave, please forgive me for the tone in my message. I am very sorry that it went out like this. That must be because of my language problems. I'm not an English native speaker and I didn't read your post that way.

I thought you were changing ribbons few years ago only for aesthetic purposes. Please forgive me for my accusations.

[NavyFCO]

Hello Dave, please forgive me for the tone in my message. I am very sorry that it went out like this. That must be because of my language problems. I'm not an English native speaker and I didn't read your post that way.

Not a problem. At least we got that straightened out. No hard feelings.

Dave

[willie777]

When creating groups like these I have several criteria:
1. The medal cannot be researched (no serial number)
2. Even if it is not serial numbered, the medal must not have documents coming with it. Although the medal and document are probbly not original to each other, I dont want to mess it up more.
3. If a serial numbered medal is essential to the group, The unnumbered variation (assuming it does not come with documentation) must be used.
4. If an order must be used, It must be substituted with a reproduction.
5. If a reproduction cannot be obtained, The decoration must be omitted.
6. The medal must be a duplicate in my collection (I must have another of the same type and variation) Repros and umalatova medals are the exception.

These only apply to suspension awards, as for screwbacks, they can easily be removed from a fabricated group.