Posts: 208
Threads: 41
Joined: Feb 2003
Reputation:
0
Prices here in Tbilisi are soaring and there is little left to choose from in the traditional venues. Common Red Stars are easily triple or more what they were going for three years ago. Real collectibles are maybe 4x prices of just two years ago.
Badges, other than the very most common ones, are not available in the public market at all. I can't believe that not so long ago I was turning down badges that I would buy in a heartbeat today.
You can still occasionally buy good things directly from families, as I mostly do, but everyone thinks their narkomat badge is a Tractor Lenin, so darn few bargains anywhere. I've got six documented groups coming in from an old friend next week but the prices are horrible.
I have been buying a lot of Imperial items lately. I can get interesting badges and medals in good condition for less than common Soviet items.
The Soviet market price boom feels like the tech stock boom. It can't last forever.
Chuck In Oregon
Currently, Chuck In Tbilisi
Posts: 153
Threads: 9
Joined: Dec 2002
Reputation:
0
I agree the bubble will have to burst sometime, but by then most of us will have stopped collecting Soviet orders, or sold our collections.
[QUOTE=Chuck In Oregon]
The Soviet market price boom feels like the tech stock boom. It can't last forever.
Posts: 1,023
Threads: 44
Joined: Nov 2002
Reputation:
0
I'm torn on this subject.
I want the prices to drop so i can fill in some holes but then again I'm looking into getting a home in the near future and I can use my high end awards as a nice downpayment... :idea
Only time will tell. 
Rusty.
"Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none." Benjamin Franklin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member #193
Posts: 284
Threads: 21
Joined: Aug 2004
Reputation:
0
HuliganRS Wrote:I'm torn on this subject.
I want the prices to drop so i can fill in some holes but then again I'm looking into getting a home in the near future and I can use my high end awards as a nice downpayment... :idea
Only time will tell.
Rusty. It seems that even buying the awards in eastern Europe is no guarantee of better prices.
Posts: 405
Threads: 33
Joined: Nov 2002
Reputation:
0
In my opinion, I believe what will break the bubble of the rising prices will be when fakes will be looking so real than even the Paul McDaniel of the world won't be able to authenticate awards because they won't be sure enough.
It may seems exagerated, but we saw fakes consistently increasing in quality over the years and fakers will just get better and better. If at one point, they are able to make fake awards looking exactly like the real awards, then waht the real awards will be worth??? Not much more than the value of the material from which they are made of.
This is sad, but I think it might happen in a not too distant future. This is why, for over a year now, I have started to expand my collecting horizons. When I reached a point where it didn't make sense to pay the asked prices for the awards I was missing, I started to buy Soviet banknotes, stamps, loans, passports, occupation documents, gramotas, Ids, photos, etc.. I always remained in Soviet stuff, but I just broaden my collection.
Posts: 1,128
Threads: 71
Joined: Jun 2003
Reputation:
0
matteti Wrote:In my opinion, I believe what will break the bubble of the rising prices will be when fakes will be looking so real than even the Paul McDaniel of the world won't be able to authenticate awards because they won't be sure enough.
But looking at the german WW2 awards market - 50 years have passed, making excellent fakes should be easy, but still the german items are often awfully expensive... And in my opinion, many german items are much less advanced in their construction, no enamel or so (like the iron cross etc.).
Posts: 405
Threads: 33
Joined: Nov 2002
Reputation:
0
Hi Tretov,
I partially agree with you and I don't know much about German awards.
But I just think that with time, technologies are progressing and available tools for fakers are improving.
Also, I tend to agree with you for complex awards which are very difficult to reproduce, but for medals like Nakhimov, Ushakov, and the Odessa, Sevastopol, Belgrade, XX years of Red Army, etc... they are not as much a challenge as they use to be for a faker. And when the possibility of profit is there, a faker will be willing to spend a bit more money to make a very convinving award... when you can get 600-700 for a Ushakov or Nakhimov without COA or any document, it worth to spend few hundreds on it to make it of real good quality... and once you can make one, then you can make more...
Anyway, maybe I am paranoiac, but that is what is scaring me and prevent me to pay over 500$ for an award now. My most expensive is a Lenin T6V1.2 which I convinced myself to buy some time ago from Alexei just because it was almost selling for the price of precious metal, thus the risk that the award one day sells for less was extremely low.
Posts: 1,023
Threads: 44
Joined: Nov 2002
Reputation:
0
There will never be a perfect fake!
Rusty.
"Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none." Benjamin Franklin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member #193
Posts: 1,128
Threads: 71
Joined: Jun 2003
Reputation:
0
I think that there could be use of a few more (two or three, one in europe for example) experts that issue certificates like the PmD. Perhaps there is already, I dont know.
Posts: 2,291
Threads: 581
Joined: Feb 2002
Reputation:
0
A "NAIVE" question - how the collectors of high end orders (Ushakov etc.) in RUSSIA are sure of authenticity of their purchases (assuming that there ARE collectors that collect awards for the potential profits, or for other reasons)?
Is there a veteran of MDD or LMD out there which provide authentication servises?
Under the banner of Marxism-Leninism, under the leadership of the Communist Party--forward to new victories in the construction of communism!
|
