Dave,
Interesting hypothesis..I've seen Jubilee issues of the Order of the Patriotic War, and some screwback Red Banners which came in those cheap white cardboard boxes stuffed with paper with a corresponding serial number stamped on the top. My Order of the Symbol of Honor screwback has a plain, small box covered in red leather-type material. The inside is unusual, in that it is padded on the top, but not the bottom.
Perhaps the prestige of the recipient had a bearing on how elaborate the construction of the box was? Seems like all the Gold Star medals got the nice padded boxes, and the Order of Friendship got those really nice padded cases. In fact, I was chatting some time ago with the grandson of the head of the Turkish Communist Party. It seems he had inherited all of his grandfather's awards upon his passing away and was interested in talking about the history behind each one as he remembered. His Grandfather received awards from all the communist countries, and what's more, they were presented and signed by heads of state and other big government types. He sent me pictures of the massive collection, unfortunately I didn't save them, but one of the awards was an Order of Friendship in the exact box pictured in McDaniels book.
So, maybe party-friendly awards were more apt to receive the nicer boxes.
Art
I would tend to agree. Especially in the case of the Order of Friendship, which was essentially a diplomatic award.
Quote:Originally posted by new world
In McDaniel book there's is nice picture of Marshal Rokossovsky being awarded Suvorov 1st on suspension by Kalinin. The award is presented to Marshal in nicely made box.
Is it possible that higher awards given out on ceremonies in Kremlin were put into nice boxes and the awards given in the less important places were just in the original plain white cardboards?
New World
