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Old 08-15-2002, 07:12 PM   #31
Art
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I wonder if ******** and ****** are taking any precautions? I know I would be moving everything into a safe deposit box right about now. Sounds like it was ordered by a private collector. All the rare types and variations, they knew exactly what to grab. You won't be seeing those awards on the market again.
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Old 08-15-2002, 07:19 PM   #32
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They were not after medals. They were after coins. Medals just happened to be there. The price of the medals is just a fraction of the price of coins.
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Old 08-15-2002, 07:36 PM   #33
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Some of those items seemed to be valuable in that they were so unique, i.e. the St. George presentation bugle, St. George presentation plate, Imperial Silver Goblet, Imperial Helmets. Surely these held a higher cash potential than the metals they were constructed of. These wouldn't be something you could sell on a table at a market to foreigners. If they weren't specifically targetting these items, it seems as if it would be pointless to steal them, unless they were hoping to sell them for the metal content. Not a very smart way to steal. They were either very well organized crooks ( hired to steal for collector, or forsale overseas ) or very stupid ( smash and grab and sell to pawn shop )

My guess ---> rich collector.
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Old 08-17-2002, 12:25 AM   #34
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I am shocked this has happened. It's ugly, and certainly makes me worry a lot. This is no doubt ordered by a collector. What confuses me is that such a burglary would cost a significant amount of money (four armed men!?)... I mean, if the person who ordered the burglary is rich, perhaps he would have simply bought the coins/medals? My guess is that it is a not-so-rich collector, from a not-so-clean background, who convinced a few of his friends to help him out with this "adventure". Very sad.
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Old 08-17-2002, 05:39 PM   #35
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Gentlemen,

I think this robbery was ordered by another dealer. Dealers always stock many duplicates, something that a collector doesn't need.

Alexei
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Old 08-18-2002, 09:03 PM   #36
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I am shocked

Just like the rest of you, I am shocked by the news. Happend to meet Dmitry personally I bought many of his items, I am deeply sadded by the robbery and I hope his very best stuff was in a safe deposit box.

Dmitry
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Old 08-19-2002, 05:43 PM   #37
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The list is growing

Several more items has been aded to the list of stolen items.
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Old 10-06-2002, 07:51 PM   #38
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USD $100,000 Reward

Just visited his site and he's offering a $100,000 reward for the recovery of these items. I wonder if any of these will ever pop-up anywhere?
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Old 11-07-2002, 07:44 PM   #39
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Interesting Article on Theft of Medals

SOURCE : Moscow News
DATE : November 19, 1998
HEADLINE: STOLEN VALOR
BYLINE : Yevgeni Sergeyev

Military regalia has been disappearing from museum display cases for some 30 years, often reappearing in antiquarians' collections abroad

The first time law enforcement agencies encountered the problem of major thefts of orders and medals was in 1967, when some 10 Marshal
Timoshenko awards were stolen from the Museum of the Revolution. During the day, a Moscow college student hid behind a column inside the museum, and later that night he broke into one of the display
cases and stole the collection of the famous military commander's regalia. The story caused a huge sensation in the higher echelons of
power, and some of the best investigators from the Moscow Criminal Investigations Department (MUR) were enlisted in a search that ended two days later with the arrest of the thief. The student was nabbed at a Moscow market just as he was trying to sell the goods. As a result of this incident, in the same year the Ministry of
Culture instructed all museums to display only models of the awards, and keep the actual orders and medals in special depositories.

Mints began producing high-class fakes made of aluminum, a special monetary alloy (zinc and tin) and bronze, which did indeed help
save the collections. One former head of the Ministry of Culture recounted how in 1986, during the Ferghana exhibition "We are Soviet
People," thieves stole all of the 40-odd duplicates on display. The awards were replaced in only a few weeks, and the exhibition
continued its tour throughout the country.

In Soviet times, museum collections of orders and medals were replenished by emigrants and deceased military bosses. According to the rules that existed back then, after an important general died, all of his awards were given over to the museums. People who emigrated from the Soviet Union also had to leave their awards behind in the country. But with the dawn of perestroika, many
relatives of high-ranking figures categorically refused to give the awards over to the museums for free, and most of them ended up going to private collectors. In 1985, the son of a famous general
who fought in World War II offered to sell his father's orders and medals to the Museum of the Revolution for 5,000 rubles. But the museum couldn't come up with that much money, so, according to some sources, almost all of the awards ended up going to antique collectors.

But by no means did all of the regalia wind up in collectors' hands "voluntarily." According to investigators, in the early 1980s, several gangs of thieves appeared in Russia, plundering the awards of the generals and their families. Very often their actions involved bloodshed, one of the most notorious incidents being the murder of Admiral Kholostyakov in Moscow. It all started when a young married couple managed to worm its way into the admiral's confidence: Having introduced themselves as museum workers, they
managed to win the admiral's favor and became frequent guests at his apartment. This friendship ended with the criminals hacking the old man to death with an ax and stealing all of his awards.
The couple was soon arrested by MUR investigators. The Ministry of Culture's subsequent recommendation to all military bosses and
their relatives not to let people introducing themselves as museum workers into their homes did little to save the regalia owners, many of whom were tricked out of their valuable awards by
people passing themselves off as directors of all kinds of exhibitions.

One of the most able museum fraudsters is considered to be a man named Alexander Karmanov. Karmanov began his criminal activity in
the late 1980s. Back then, he succeeded in cheating several families of famous military bosses out of their awards in one fell
swoop. He would introduce himself as an employee of a major museum and request rarities for his exhibitions. In this way, he managed
to get his hands on more than 90 orders and medals, including the awards of Marshal Kozhedub, General Luchinsky and Admiral Gorshkov.
It was only after the regalia was discovered in the collection of a famous American antique collector, who had asked the relatives to send him a full-length photograph of Marshal Kozhedub in uniform wearing all the regalia, that the people realized that they had been cheated. Enraged, the relatives contacted the police. Karmanov
was sentenced to three years in jail, but in 1997 he was released on an amnesty.

Upon his release, the swindler immediately registered a "Museum of Military History" under his wife's name, and, after fabricating
some identification stating that he was the director of the museum, once again began paying visits to the families of military bosses. With his air of respectability, Karmanov would tell them that he was organizing an exhibition on Poklonnaya Gora dedicated to the undeservedly forgotten heroes of the country, and asked the
people to give some sort of rare items for the exposition. It wasn't long before the swindler managed to gain the trust of the
families of people like Brezhnev, Budyonny and Zhukov. He was rearrested last March and investigators discovered over a dozen
rare awards in his possession, including five Hero of the Soviet Union Stars that once belonged to Brezhnev, an Order of Bogdan
Khmelnitsky and an Order of Nakhimov. During questioning, Karmanov admitted that he had been planning to send all of the awards abroad.

In 1996, officials from the 9th division of the MUR solved yet another major regalia-related crime. In 1995, collector Mikhail Selivanov had over 100 awards, estimated at $ 3 million, stolen from his apartment. The collection included badges for Valiant Military Service in the Russian Army dating from the 17th to the
early 20th centuries and the Soviet era, the most valuable being the Orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Ushakov, Kutuzov, an Order of World War II, 1st Class, and one of the earliest Orders of the Red Banner of Combat. The stolen regalia was later discoveredin the possession of a resident of the Tula region. As in the case with Karmanov, the criminal had been planning to sell the
collection to the West. He was arrested just as he was negotiating with a foreign diplomat.

The foreign antique market is the main buyer of Soviet orders and medals. Right now, the cheapest of the most valuable awards - a medal commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army - costs from $ 3,000 to $ 5,000, and the most expensive - the Order of Victory, decorated with rubies and diamonds - sells for up to $ 2 million at auctions.

MN FILE Military regalia (both from the tsarist and Soviet eras)has long become a regular commodity on the markets. The awards
are bought, sold and traded by people who appreciate these types of rarities. The value of the orders and medals varies depending on the number of surviving specimens and the amount
of precious metals and stones in them.

Approximate prices for Soviet-era medals and orders are as follows:

Order of Victory - $ 2 million
Order of Ushakov, 1st Class - $ 25,000
Order of Nakhimov, 1st Class - $ 10,000
Order of Kutuzov, 1st Class - $ 6,000-$ 8,000
Orders of Glory - $ 7,500
Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union - $ 650-$ 2,500
Order of Lenin - $ 700-$ 900
Order of World War II, 1st Class - $ 200
Order of the Red Star - $ 100.
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Old 11-08-2002, 04:11 AM   #40
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How interesting.

The "Museum of Military History" clears up something for me. A certain idiot has been selling Soviet uniforms on Ebay for years under false descriptions. He is a fairly well known dealer of other militaria and people tell me he has a fairly good reputation for German stuff - although he is know as a difficult person.

This guys sells stuff from the 50s and 60s as wartime. Stuff from 80s as from 50s. He is especially bad with naval uniforms as he calls the high collar uniform made in the 80s a WWII uniform. He often exaggerates normal things as special forces or intelligence and of course everything is "very rare".

Anyway, I had a long dispute with this guy (as did several others I know). He claimed it all came from his Russian contact and was from the Musum of Military History in Moscow. We told the guy that 1) the Museum did not exist, and 2) anyone who thought that something like a brand new 1980s rifles major general's service uniform could come from the collection of a Moscow museum was an idiot. All his stuuf came from the Stari Arbat!

It appears that he was the "victim" of this Museum fraud.

On another note, does anyone know more tales about museum thefts and museum closures. I have always wondered about high level uniforms and banners. Some might be stolen. However there are many small museums that have closed.

Shawn
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