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The intrinsic value of all these awards, uniforms, flags, etc. is zero, the only value is the artificial value placed on them by collectors. I have no idea what drives the market for these things worldwide, but if it is wealthy Russians, a collapse in the price of oil and gas could lead to a collapse in the prices of soviet awards as well. On the other hand, if these items become a big fad in other countries, or if a Russian middle class develops, the prices of even the most common items could go way up. Its really impossible to say which way prices could go, but they could go up or down dramatically, or they could stay the same. Ask someone who collected baseball cards or beanie babies 10-20 years ago, the prices went beyond everyones projections, only to completely crash after a few years. It really depends on the Russian economy and the staying power of the hobby in the west as memories of the cold war recede.
Keith
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Keith Wrote:Ask someone who collected baseball cards or beanie babies 10-20 years ago, the prices went beyond everyones projections, only to completely crash after a few years. It really depends on the Russian economy and the staying power of the hobby in the west as memories of the cold war recede.
Keith
Baseball / Basketball cards prices crash was a result of number of cards produced later. When 100s of different companies produce billions of cards, the price and interest of collecting the cards goes down. The collecting becomes boring.
The situation with Soviet awards is little different. There is no more USSR, and there is no more awards. I am 100% agree with the correlation between prices and economy (Russian and US).
Eric.
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Eric,
Thats only partially true, the prices of the older cards crashed as well, the ones with limited production made before the boom. The same with beanie babies, the scarce ones that were out of production went way down in value also. If people decide that they are not interested in a hobby anymore, the prices get wiped out. The question is how likely is this to happen with Soviet items, I would think unlikely, but I really have no idea.
Keith
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There are two main drivers to the market as I see it:
1) Supply
2) Purchasing power
SUPPLY
Awards / groups came to the market from two primary sources: veterans families and museums in former USSR.
Most of the verterans are gone by now and majority of the families sold awards to the market. Russia sort of passed the bottom in terms of the poverty and the most needy families sold awards where the times were tougher. Don't forget there were plenty of trophy hunters in former SU whos primary activity was about going from town to village in search of families willing to sell awards. With years of heavy hunting that sector is exhausted. There are also places that buy precious metals and antiques. Until few years aga there was contant stream of folks in need bringing awards, but based on the Russian sources interesting items all disappeared and only common awards currently are still being brought in.
As for the museums - ones that did not care about Soviet items - mostly in Baltics - already sold / gave away their items. Remaining museums also suffered from replacements and currently have tighter controls in place.
Don't get me wrong, we will see occasional new items on the market, but to the minimal degree.
Private collections will remain as the main source for the future. What's the likelyhood that collectors will sell their awards for lower prices than they bought them? Slim to none, unless there real need (such as tragedy in the family, change of interests, funds needed for other endeavors, etc).
PURCHASING POWER
There are rich folks in Russia with means well beyond what normal collectors possess. The are the one who drive the prices up. Market evolves around them at the moment.
That's why a dealer has Suvorov for $15,000. He's not targeting ordinary collectors, he's waiting for rich person to come over. How many of us are capable and willing to spend $15,000, even $12,000 for a medal to add to the collection? I was considering Rusty's Suvorov, but to freeze $12,000 in a single medal?
I can almost guarantee that whoever bought that Suvorov from Rusty had Russia in mind. Most likely that Suvorov (like most of high-priced items) will end up with some wealthy dude in Russia. For such buyers few thousand $$$ difference will not be a deal breaker, as their income / wealth exceed such prices by great margins.
The truth is that there always will be expensive items out there. Suvorov is currently expensive at $12-15K, but when the price was $2.5-3K - I don't remember everyone on this board jumping on and purchasing as many of them as we could. It still was expensive!
Items like this were and will be luxury items.
William
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Am I the only one? Or is it just a temporary thing?
But are the prices of selling and sold (Soviet medal related) items on eBay leveling off a great deal???
I've got a V1 Oktober Revolution and a quite a few campaign medals that I've been sitting on and it seems like, in the last month or so, that the market has has slowed down more than a little bit.
Am I just dreaming all this? Is it related to the worsening US economy?* Is it a global thing?
Has anyone else noticed this or am I just paranoid?
* Thanks so much dubyah....
"patina imparts character" - PJS
A wise man said: 'you should not pay a premium for what you want beyond your comfort level, and always ensure there is a mutually agreeable return policy.'
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They may level off, but a price drop would be... very annoying, having spent a lot of money on awards during the past years at growing prices.
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I don't think the prices will drop, yet. When people in Russia get more money some of them will probably want one or two orders/medals from the old time. So I think prices may still rise a bit more. At least I don't think they will drop from where they are now...
Too many out there who still "need" them. 
/Erik
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coming from the point of the college economics major, a price drop wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. the price drop would most likely be felt by dealers (sorry alexei) but only in the short run. pieces such as suvorovs or nevskys are not going to drop that much in price because they are still rare.
because of the high set prices of the rarer pieces, even if prices fall to nearly nothing on everything else, business profits would be offset by the sale of the larger pieces. the larger pieces having the higher price will also drive demand for other pieces up a little bit in the long run
if you guys are interested, i could draw some incredibly boring graphs.. :eek:
it will all work out in the end, remember, the economy works in cycles
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I don't sell much at all, so I can't really comment. But since I've come into a few lower end medals that are now duplicates it seems to me the prices I'd bought these for recently don't seem to be reached when they are sold (on eBay for example). Maybe I'm just looking at a very small market cross-section.
"patina imparts character" - PJS
A wise man said: 'you should not pay a premium for what you want beyond your comfort level, and always ensure there is a mutually agreeable return policy.'
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Guys,
I wouldn't call it a price drop, but rather a short term fluctuation explained by the fact that collectors were waiting for their tax refunds.
I've noticed that fakes are also somewhat driving the prices down, some items are getting hard to sell - I had two perfectly genuine (please trust me on that) FoNs returned to me in the past 6-7 months. I don't think I had that many returns in the last couple of years.
Alexei
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