Robert Pierce's recent postings on Sevastapol and Odessa medals got me thinking about how picky and paranoid we have all become about fakes of Soviet awards.
ALL the Defense, Liberation, and Capture medals are, after all, very crudely made, mass produced, and were often worn by the original recipients on a daily basis for decades-- leaving us with worn, scratched, and buffed down tired old veterans indeed!
I find it is VERY hard to scan any of these medals:
There is always some sort of "real color" distortion and or either reflection from whatever may be left of the original gilt finish, or "distortions" through the sort of splotchy discoloration and tarnish most of these seem to end up with.
I personally NEVER clean any of these medals, ever:
the brass they are made out of is already soft, and easily scratched as decades of original owner wear so often reveals. Anything used to clean will inevitably strip off whatever remnant of original finish might still be lingering in crevices. And having been buffed down often enough with whatever the Soviet version of "Brasso" was, they are already QUITE worn enough.
There can surely not have been a SINGLE die ever made for each of these medals-- certainly not for the ones churned out by hundreds of thousands-- and I notice a what I suppose may be either a 'wearing down" of the dies from repeated use, or perhaps something as simple as insufficient or excessive pressure in the striking, because some medals with LESS detail have MORE finish--
suggesting to me the DIE was worn BEFORE the finish was applied.
Sometimes I think we can become TOO paranoid, and TOO nitpicky about items that are almost always, after all, mass produced by the Communist version of "lowest bid."
If anyone would add similar scans, I have done the obverse with just enough of ring showing to tell whether it is soldered loop or shaved down, at 400% life size. Detail closeups will be at 750%, usually.
To my knowledge, the WW2 campaign medals were NOT all centrally struck, as Orders were, in only the Moscow or Leningrad Mints. Certainly the Defense of Leningrad Medals were made DURING the 900 day siege, and were already being bestowed before the siege even ended! If any medal was ever harder earned, I don't know what it was!
Here is Defense of Leningrad Medal #1 at 400%--
notice that the two soldiers at far right don't have fully formed faces.
ALL the Defense, Liberation, and Capture medals are, after all, very crudely made, mass produced, and were often worn by the original recipients on a daily basis for decades-- leaving us with worn, scratched, and buffed down tired old veterans indeed!
I find it is VERY hard to scan any of these medals:
There is always some sort of "real color" distortion and or either reflection from whatever may be left of the original gilt finish, or "distortions" through the sort of splotchy discoloration and tarnish most of these seem to end up with.
I personally NEVER clean any of these medals, ever:
the brass they are made out of is already soft, and easily scratched as decades of original owner wear so often reveals. Anything used to clean will inevitably strip off whatever remnant of original finish might still be lingering in crevices. And having been buffed down often enough with whatever the Soviet version of "Brasso" was, they are already QUITE worn enough.
There can surely not have been a SINGLE die ever made for each of these medals-- certainly not for the ones churned out by hundreds of thousands-- and I notice a what I suppose may be either a 'wearing down" of the dies from repeated use, or perhaps something as simple as insufficient or excessive pressure in the striking, because some medals with LESS detail have MORE finish--
suggesting to me the DIE was worn BEFORE the finish was applied.
Sometimes I think we can become TOO paranoid, and TOO nitpicky about items that are almost always, after all, mass produced by the Communist version of "lowest bid."
If anyone would add similar scans, I have done the obverse with just enough of ring showing to tell whether it is soldered loop or shaved down, at 400% life size. Detail closeups will be at 750%, usually.
To my knowledge, the WW2 campaign medals were NOT all centrally struck, as Orders were, in only the Moscow or Leningrad Mints. Certainly the Defense of Leningrad Medals were made DURING the 900 day siege, and were already being bestowed before the siege even ended! If any medal was ever harder earned, I don't know what it was!
Here is Defense of Leningrad Medal #1 at 400%--
notice that the two soldiers at far right don't have fully formed faces.
).
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