Lenin.

[Laurent]

Alexei,

Which one are you talking about, the screwback OL?

[Jeffrey Meffert]

Nice set indeed. One of those above shows the crescent on the back which occurs presumably when A medal has rocked side to side on the top row of a parade mount and has rubbed across the top of it's "downstairs" neighbor. Such marks don't bother me and I've found them reassuring indications of authenticity.
Question for the dealers and high end collectors: Have you ever seen a fake medal where the sellers went through the effort to generate this crescent? They do seem to be getting more clever, especially as the prices have gone up and I'm not sure how valid it would be now.

[Lapa]

Jeffrey,

I personally would not base my assessment of genuineness on this factor.

Marc

[desantnik]

I agree with Lapa. It can be an encouraging sign, but not something to lean solely upon when thinking about dropping a thousand dollars. Although made of gold which is softer than silver, a Lenin with a #400K serial number would probably have been issued in the 90's - not long enough to get a "crescent" from extended wear.

I think it's been discussed elsewhere, but the "crescent" can come from just being folded in half and rubbing against the suspension pin. Whether you call this "faked" or not, it can either intentionally or unintentionally happen.

I prefer seeing north-south "ding" marks usually on the left and right sides of a medal where it banged up against its neighbors, but a genuine medal may not exhibit this if worn apart from other ones.

[Kirchgoens]

I was in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar this past week, two years and a month almost to the day from the last set of posts. I saw the same Lenins with the same dealer (the display is essentially unchanged from your photos), but his beginning price is now $2,000 per piece. He only had a helper in the shop who did not want to show me the serial numbers/reverses0 of more than two, mostly out of laziness (and some really bad salemanship). In this bazaar, you can sometimes get as low as 50% off the initial asking price, but I'm not sure this guy would go that low. In short, his best prices will probably be way off base.

I saw another dealer with an ORS that was going for double what I normally pay at even his best price, and it was a long service, early 50's, 3.2mil piece.

...Brian

[Stepanovich]

I thought that this might be the proper place to post pics of two new Lenins recently purchased as part of a Hammer and Sickle (HSL) documented group.

I haven't had them authenticated yet. Every time that I put the money aside to do so, I find sometrhing else to buy instead.
Steve

[Stepanovich]

And another recent acquisition T5V1

[Mark Signa]

C'mon!!! Lets share it! Post some pictures ple-e-e-e-ase!!!

Lenin #4963.

[Lauri]

Hi!

My favourite piece, that i got to my collection this year is a documented swallow tail order of lenin Lenin. Serial nr. 12825, awarded 1 January 1944 to Arkadi Fedotenko. Really rare piece in excellent condition.

Since here attachments are limited, i will add here only pictures of the order. Who want's see also the order book, please visit MONDVOR forum.

I tried to research this order, but without results. When i got this order i heard, that this man was serving in NKVD. And so it seems to be.

[Bill Garvy]

#47676 Awarded 1945, (T.5, V1) (research pending). . .