How To Store And Display Awards.

[Mark Signa]

Still working on it...

[desantnik]

Nice display. Are you test pilot/test parachutist badges authentic?

[Mark Signa]

Not sure, no serial number. Discussed in thread=3991 page=6.

[desantnik]

I wouldn't know. I only handled one real test parachutist from a recipient I met when jumping at Ryazan in '92. I remembered it being "heavy" to the feel and a very quality badge. I don't remember if there was a s/n.

If they're all real, it's quite an accomplishment.

[EricFG]

Actually, it's a re-display of my labor collection.
I used the same Michael's frame but this time I ditched the glued-on cloth that the medals were pinned to and substituted a light colored paper background. Also, after a long time trying to devise a way of affixing medals to a bacground in a way that would allow them to be removed easily for inspection I came up with a simple solution: a thumbtack.
I also added some znachki to spice up the collection.

[Riley1965]

Eric,
GREAT job!!! It's a nice change in mounting medals.

Best,
Doc

[Lapa]

Eric,

Great idea those thumbtacks!

Marc

[EricFG]

Great idea those thumbtacks!

Thanks.

In case anyone is confused look at the second picture I attached in post 352. The thumbtack goes in at a slight angle and the horizontal pin on the reverse of the suspension (of the medal) slips over the top of the thumbtack. The medal hangs in place nicely, and you can pick it right off the tack when you need to inspect the reverse of the medal for serial numbers and whatnot.

I'd walked through a dozen stores over the space of a few months with a spare medal in my pocket trying to find a good, solid temporary mounting device for regular medals before I saw the thumbtacks.

I'd recommend trying to find cheaply made thumbtacks because they bend better, and trying to find tacks with short points on them as they're easier to push into stuff.

[Jeffrey Meffert]

It amused me how much the soviet awards parallelled the old imperial awards. This is a parade mount set from Russian-Japanese War paired with it's WWII equivalents.

funny flash artifact but you get the idea of this Order Patriotic War theme. Up top are WWII issue 1st and 2nd Classes, down below the 1985 equivalents, in the middle the 1995 veteran badge which was clearly modeled after the OPW. Bottom center is a big honking brass OPW that was pried off a Moscow office building in 1992. Apparently whatever organization was housed there, earned an organizational OPW during the war.

A gaggle of red banners of labor. Yes technically the Korean one is 3 revolutions but one of those revolutions is labor...and it was obviously copied from the mongolian order beneath it. Others on the left are DDR and Soviet. On the right Polish and Bulgarian. By the way, if any one has a hungarian RBL they are tired of, I'd love to work it in here somewhere.

[desantnik]

You'll notice that the Red Banner and 1938-introduced awards look NOTHING like "the old regime". This was to show the complete break with and superiority of the new system.

However when the Soviet Union's back was against the wall until mid-1943, they reintroduced older "classic", popular designs (like shoulderboards that earlier in Soviet Russia were forbidden) to create a spirit of unity and get people to fight for "the cause". They also permitted religion, gave more autonomy to regions and ethnic groups, etc. This extended into phaleristics too (Order of Glory, St. George ribbon).