My Afghan stuff ...

[Alfred]

11 different Afghan medals

[desantnik]

As is usual with many Afghan awards, several of the ribbons are probably incorrect. For example, the bottom left-most award's ribbon should be green.

I'm amazed at variations of medals that keep showing up. I've never seen some of the variations of long service medals you have. Nice.

[Felix]

The entire collection. Is it enough for you or do you need more evidences ?

[Dat Nguyen]

Greetings to All,

As promised here are some of the stuff I collected over the years during my deployments to Afghanistan.

Feel free to ask any questions. I will try to describe some of the stuff listed this weekend when I have more time.

v/r
Dat Nguyen

[CtahhR]

There's certainly some nice stuff there....

Detailed pictures of obverses and reverses in the correct threads would be much appreciated.

[Dat Nguyen]

Perhaps next weekend I will post photos of bayonets, rifles, swords, and kukri's made at the Kabul Royal Arsenal. The Afghan made some pretty impressive items there from the mid-1800's up to the beginning of WW1.

v/r
Dat Nguyen

[medals73]

A nice collection you have there. A shame that so many Afghan things come to market on the incorrect ribbons, though. I try not to post things that are on the wrong ribbons as there is already more than enough "misinformation" out and about.

How many of the orders are numbered?

(Actually working on The Afghan Book just now . . . .)

[Dat Nguyen]

Hello,

Yeah, most Afghan stuff I saw has the wrong ribbons or none at all. The vendors acquire the medal from another seller and then takes it to the military bases to sell. Normally the medals sit in a pile, arranged on a table, and sometime in a case. But in the summer with the temperature getting up over 40C, it gets painful just to pick them up to look at. Almost all of the Afghan medal/order are made with epoxy enamel. I think the heat and the rough handling are responsible for most of the damages.

Since you are working on a book, in one of the photo you can see three square boxes. Those are boxes that the medals were issued in. There were medals in it when I purchased it, but I am not certain which medals came with it. The medals were also wrapped in paper before being placed in the box. Do you have any photos of award boxes?

I gotta get back with you on the serial numbers because I put all of them back in storage last night.

v/r
Dat

A nice collection you have there. A shame that so many Afghan things come to market on the incorrect ribbons, though. I try not to post things that are on the wrong ribbons as there is already more than enough "misinformation" out and about.

How many of the orders are numbered?

(Actually working on The Afghan Book just now . . . .)

[CtahhR]

Those cardboard boxes are pretty much the norm for all Soviet and now Russian produced awards. You can find awards from wherever the Soviet Union/Russian Federation has had its fingers. They usually come with a small bit of tissue paper and a ballpoint pen scribble of what is inside. There are many variations on card quality too from rough grey and brown cards to very glossy white pieces.

Some of them are two piece and some just have a flap opening at one end. I've got dozens unissued awards in such boxes but the most common (for obvious reasons) is the Medal "Veteran Of Labour" which were piled high when communism ended.

Almost universally overlooked and of absolute minimal monetary and collector value but just another factor to the hobby.

Without a written or stamped title on the box completely untraceable to an individual award.

[medals73]

And such boxes (and other paperwork) really do not often survive in South Asia, especially in conditions of a nasty multi-generational war.