I had a full set of unissued Service to Motherland awards offered to me here in Republic of Georgia for $500.00. I passed. As I recall, the serial number on the 1st class was 0009, which based on the information I had at the time, I felt had already been issued. Same thing for the 2nd class. None of them had docs. However, those are the first of this type of award I have seen here in over a year.
I have a beautiful 1st Class and a 2nd Class Order of Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR which came from a Soviet Jew who immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s. The 1st Class is #114 and the 2nd Class is #2614. I assume both of them are unissued orders.
I noticed that McDaniel indicates on page 172 the highest serial # he had seen for a 1st Class was #454, and the highest # he had seen for a 2nd Class was 2951. If these are the highest numbers he had seen by 1997 (date of his book) it seems feasible that there had been at least 454 1st and 2951 2nd Class orders struck. What do you think?
We were talking about unusual variations of this award. William's Order is a rare "mirror reverse" variation, and mine is a weird piece with some raised vertical lines on the bottom tip. I've never seen such variation before.
I think your's is a common variation, or am I missing something?