BAM Award Books

[Bill Garvy]

[SIZE="3"]I am soliciting the collective wisdom of my colleagues regarding these three Award Books for the Medal for the Construction of the Baikul-Amur Railroad. They are all issued to women, and two appear to be sisters with the same last name.

Is it me or is something not quite right? Your thoughts, please, and then I will tell you my intuitive sense.[/SIZE]

[ericlida]

Three women have three different last names: Galyatina, Suslova, Suchkova.
Nina is the first name.
Three of them also have different middle (father's) names.
They cannot be sisters.
Only, if they have different fathers :)

[Tommy]

1 & 2, the signatures are too identical to me.

I too feel uneasy, Bill.

What have you picked up on?

Tom

Eric. "While the Cat's away, the mice will play!" :). Ahem.

[ericlida]

1 & 2, the signatures are too identical to me.

I too feel uneasy, Bill.

What have you picked up on?

Tom

But... signatures are not the signatures of the receipients.

[Tommy]

What I'm saying is that over a year apart, Whoever signed the document signed it identically.

I have trouble making my signature the same as my previous one, even 5 minutes apart.

Were signatures ever stamped?

[CtahhR]

They all have fairly common Russian names.... They were issued in the RSFSR (where BAM was/is).

The "issuers" autographs are rubber stamps so will be identical.

I don't see a problem, they could have been all processed through the same office by the same bureaucrat.

[Bill Garvy]

Thank you all for your invaluable perspectives. I am most grateful. In my "paranoic" old age I suspected forgeries given the similarities amongst the documents, but with your additional factual perspectives my fears have been laid to rest, again, thank you. A deal is in the works, ahem. . .

[ericlida]

What I'm saying is that over a year apart, Whoever signed the document signed it identically.

I have trouble making my signature the same as my previous one, even 5 minutes apart.

Were signatures ever stamped?

Stamped in USSR in 80s? Probably not.
They could sign many documents for the future recepients and keep them blank. This is why, once in a while you see blank documents for sale. :)

[CtahhR]

Here are 3 SSR awarded documents with rubber stamps from the 1980's. This was of only a dozen I checked - I'm sure they're not super rare.

[Bill Garvy]

All of the Award Books for this medal in my collection are "stamped" with the facsimile signature of the Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.