Unknown (but surely common) VU Badge

[REDMAXIM2001]

Dear comrades:

Any info about this badge, VU, etc?

Thank you so much, gentelmen

[Chris]

Red Max

This badge is for finishig military school and is of no great interest for collectors according to Avers 1. hey I think it's ok.

Attached are some more which were between 50/56, there are 22 in this series and are not so easy to come across

Chris

[REDMAXIM2001]

OK Chris very nice badges.

They are truly beautiful ones. Specially #15 & # 12. Are they in your collection?.

Of course I known this badge was common & modern, but its BY (VU) confused me I expected CA (SA) or something like this.

Thanks Chris.

Red Max

[Chris]

Red Max

heres some more


yep they are in my collection..not to expensive but getting very hard to find


regards chris

[Nota Bene]

Red Max,

Just thought I'd add that "VY" stands for military school. This badge was the last in the serie, as a matter of fact it had replaced the previous "speciality" badges and was used in 1957-1963.

Alexei

[REDMAXIM2001]

I´d like so much that we can have at the beguin of the Badges forum at least two badges catalogues: speciality & otlinchnik with little pics & type description & definition.

I know both of you have beautiful badges. ;)

& amazing knwoledge too. :)

Thanks, comrades.

Red Max

[Sergey Tamayev]

Very nice badges; I can't help but wonder why they are supposedly not of interest to collectors.

[Nota Bene]

Sergey,

Most collectors concentrate on medals, and move on to badges only when they have most of the obtainable awards, but even after that they are looking mostly for badges given for something heroic, like WWII "Excellence" badges, Hasan, etc.

Alexei

[otlichnik]

A further note on "Academy" badges.

This term is really a misnomer. Military school badge is a better term. There were only a little over a dozen actual military academies in the USSR. However, there were also over 200 higher and middle officer school and several (around ten I think) military cadet schools (military high schools) - the famous Suvorov and Nakhimov schools.

There is a "heirarchy" of military school badges.

The round badges shown above on this thread, both the school-specific and the later general "SU" ones were for middle military school which offered a three year officer course.

The blue diamond badges are for higher officer schools offering a four year officer course. There are two types of these diamonds - one old and one newer. There are a few of the newer ones with metal plaques with the school acronym on them but these are unofficial variations.

The white diamond badges are for military academies and for higher military schools offering a five year officer course. Badges for true academies always have a plaque on them identifying the academy. For the higher military schools it was up to the commander to determine if a plaque should be used. They appear on all naval school but few others for some reason. White diamond badges from the 1940s-50s were often, but not always, silver.

On the Dzerzhinskiy school. There are at least four different schools of this name including artillery, and engineering.

The so-called "KGB Academy" was in fact the Dzerzhinskiy Higher School of the USSR KGB and was never an academy during the Soviet era. I have a diploma issued by the KGB dzerzhinskiy school to a KGB officer. It was issued with a standard white diamond military school badge with no plaque identifying the school.

Shawn