Avers Series

[Mark Signa]

Found Averc 6 on e-Bay - starting price - $125 - costly!!
Mark

Originally Posted by Kim

So I guess that I’m the fist member of this forum to get a AVERS 6… Now that I have a copy I can write the review I asked for.

AVERS 6
Author: V.D. Krivtsov (ed.)

The bad things with this book are, as I see it:

• It’s all in Russian. This might come as a surprise to the authors, but Russian is not a language widely spread (like for example Swedish… ;) ).
  
  I miss photos of the documents that came with the order/medal. Now there are some photos, but mostly of the rarer type of “paper” (Ushakov medal, cavalier of the order of Glory etc.) This is not really bad because few collectors will ever see the rare documents live. But there is great variation when it comes to documents not just in medal-hard ware. Perhaps a AVERS 7 will deal with documents only? Or …
  
  Hidden serialnumbers. There are probably reasons to hide the number, protect the seller, owner etc.. But when you write a book I think you have to show information, not hide it. This is only done with high-end stuff, so I will never suffer from this lack of hidden information.

Now to the good sides of this book:

•  The photos are very good and plentiful. Quality is much better than “Orders of the Soviet republics” or “Medals of the USSR” (good books, but terrible photo quality).
   Medals and orders are shown with all(?) known variations.
   The Republican orders are all shown.
   Market prices on all variations. This is standard AVERS, but these prices are REALITY, or as close an avers book has ever come. A bit low, but to my knowledge very close to what you will have to pay. Although I would like to see a partisan medal document book for 7-12usd.
   Photos of fakes/copies. Perhaps it could have been more, but you always want more… :)

The one main thing I can’t judge is the text, as my Russian is close to non-existent. Perhaps someone of the forums Russian speakers could give a comment?

Now to the reason for writing a review: is it anything to spend money on? I say: Yes. It’s no McDaniel but has lots of images that is missing from the “Comprehensive guide”.

/Kim