Type 1 Russian Front medal

[Dez H]

Well I thought it was about time I shared something with the forum members. As work has just obtained a new digital camera what better way to test it out? Here is a very nice near mint Russian Front medal often refered to as the frozen meat medal. No maker mark or packet. Very nice type 1 piece (with the silver highlights.) No much more I can really say, not a particularly rare or valuable piece but still very nice nonetheless.



Nice shot of the front:




Closeup of the front:




Closeup of the reverse:

[Dez H]

Reverse shot:




Closeup of the helmet/grenade:




Nice shot of the eagle on the front:







The Swastika and nice shot of the frosty rim:

[Rick Research]

Here's mine, maker "39" on the ring (because it is all gray finish, my scanner won't cooperate on a closeup of the mark, blown up x300

Obverse:



and the reverse:



I paid $2 and something for this in 1969.

[Mike Kenny]

?types?

Hi Dez,

Silly question, you mention "type 1". What other types are there and how do you distinguish them? Just curious because I haven't heard the term applied to this medal before. Time to learn something new!

Regards
Mike K

(PS, nice medals!)

[Mark S.]

This is news to me as well. Is this "type 1" clarification gleaned from a book?

I never heard of the Ost Front medal divided into types before.

[Dez H]

I have always distinguished these pieces into two categories, type 1 and type 2. Type 1s have the nice silver plated frames like you see here pictured on mine and Rick’s. The type 2s does not have the silver highlights and are just all plain grey looking. I belive these were used after 1942. Has no one else noticed this before? I have a type 2 as well. Will post a picture later tonight.

[Dez H]

For your reference type 2 Russian front medal.
From what I can tell this piece has never had any silver finish applied to it. It is also unmaker marked.






Dez

[Mark S.]

I noticed the differences, I just always called them the nice ones or the crappy ones.

Noticing the differences between your medal and Rick's though, I cant help but wonder if there should be another class. Rick's medal looks like it is plated in some way, and seems to be of a higher quality metal, while yours looks like its zinc with a color wash.

[Rick Research]

I think Dez is onto something here. Some time back Chris V was running up a list of maker's marks on these... I agree, looks like we have THREE types:

1) Mine is non corroding Buntmetall, with a fine grey finish as found on the top quality naval badges, and smooth equally well done silver on top of that chemical patina.

2) Dez's has equally nice finish, but from the bubbling appears to have been put on a zink or similar base metal

3) The poor All Zinky Crud ones. I think whatever sloppy finish was applied to these has simply evaporated off/been absorbed in over time. I had part of a a three generations 1870-WW2 officers family group--grandson went down on the Scharnhorst and received the HSF badge posthumously. Sat in its paper envelope until his dad died. The ship and waves were gray (painted sort of finish, as I remember) but every bit of gold except some around the hinge had simply disappeared as if there had never been any.

Now what we need to do is combine Dez's Types (are there MORE than 3?...) crosschecked against Chris's makers' list: who made WHICH KIND?

[Chrvip68]

Hello,

Interesting topic and nice observations.

I think Ostfront medals like Rick's,in some way, are more scarce than the others. Most of the times are zinc based.

The 3rd type has a "gun-metal" finish or is it black?

I can't be more helpfull, i have lost recently all my work for some awards and medals that i have done,included the makers list on them,anybody who saved the list?

The only Ostfront medal i have right now is a packeted one from an uknown maker,the medal is unmarked and goes in the 2nd category, w/o the flakes and bubbling.

[Bruce Simcox]

Amounts

Just curious here....

......does anyone have any stats on just how many ? of these badges were produced and distributed?

--------------------

Bruce

[Dez H]

Russian front medals are quite common in my opinion. Originals with packets and the award citation are more rare. As for numbers produced I have no idea. In 1943 alone the Germans and their allies amasses over 3 million men and support staff to form over 360 divisions on the Russian front. At that time over 1 million men had been killed, wounded, frost bitten or just plain disappeared. If I were to take a guess, I would put the figure at around 5 million. Sometime in 1944 they stopped awarding the medal altogether. By that stage they were well into the type 3? Similar to the last pictured I posted. As for trying to work out which makers produced what, most of these I have come across have been unmaker marked as with the two pictured here.

In comparison the current Australian army has a current force of around 3,500 men and women. This also includes the support staff, reserves, cooks, medics and all the computer operators. This is for a country bordering on 20 million people. Not even one division!

Dez

[Frank Heukemes]

approx. 3 million awarded medals (information taken from Detlev Niemann´s price guide)

Cheers, Frank

[Rick Research]

The medal was awarded only for qualifying conditions being met between the 15th of November 1941 and 15th of April 1942.

Late awards continued because of processing delays, men rotated out of units they had served in then, etc.

But they had to have been there over the winter of 1941/42.

[Chrvip68]

I was enough lucky and i found some printed papers,one of them
having the makers list on these medals.

This is not the complete list.

• 3
• 6
• 13
• 15
• 19
• 20
• 25
• 30
• 39 provided by Rick Lundstorm.
• 55
• 60
• 65 provided by Javier Garcia.
• 76
• 80
• 88
• 93
• 107 or 127* provided by Paul Massucci.
• Unknown firm
• L15

*I can't remember for sure the maker that Paul told me when we compiled the list on this forum.