Merchant Fleet Navigator Badge

[packrat]

Hi -

I'm brand new to the world of Russian/Soviet military memorabilia. I found some cool stuff at the flea market yesterday and am researching it.

Two of the items seem to be a 1985 Type 3 Order of the Patriotic War and an Order of the Badge of Honor - no idea on the year. I'll ask more about those another day. Maybe they're not real?

I'm really puzzled by the third item and have no idea at all what it is. I'm uploading a photo of this item. It has a screw back and on back of the cross piece just above the propeller, it's marked with what looks like M and a block O. I didn't test this for metal content.

Does anyone have any idea what this is?

Also....I'm dying to polish this but keeping my hands off the polish because I don't want to ruin the patina. Any thoughts?

Many thanks for any info you can give me!

Bye now,
Nancy

[Jeffrey Meffert]

Check item #7, #21, & #22 on http://www.soviet-awards.com/forum/sovie...badge.html
Looks nice as is. DON'T polish it.

[packrat]

Thanks! You're in San Antonio as well? I picked this up at Bussey's yesterday. What do you suppose the propeller would be for? An engineer?

[Jeffrey Meffert]

I don't have a reference book for this badge (they do exist) so cannot be more specific. Especially in uniforms from the 40's and 50's a crossed hammer and monkey-wrench is the usual engineer device. Sometimes it's reflected primarily in colors (in the navy, engineers might have silver buttons instead of gold. Army show black piping except, in some contexts and ranks, magenta.)
Soviet navy, like that of most nations, tends to have uniform or device idiosyncracies or seems to be "out of step" with sister services when it comes to standardized patches, rank, badges.
But then that's part of the fun of collecting, is it not?

[packrat]

Thanks for all the info!