Fake Medals for Victory over Germany and Japan

[GabrielMk3]

You either lacquer it, which ruins the piece in "some" people's eyes.

Or you keep it in a vacuum chamber. :thumbsup

[Lapa]

How do you keep it like that? Mine are getting tarnished even in plastic pouches :(

You should be careful with these plastic pouches. You need to get inert plastic type, or some of the chemical compounds (especially plastifiers) will react with the metal.

You either lacquer it, which ruins the piece in "some" people's eyes...

Actually, lacquering is probably one of the best and safest way to preserve the surface, and it does not ruin anything as it can easily be removed with a quick bath in acetone. Some world class coin collections were so treated in the past - not the least of which is King Farouk collection - and no collector has ever complained about that.

Marc

[travel-north]

Sergei, what kind of plastic pouches do you use? You should use special plastic inserts for collecting because not all types of plastic is safe. I've been keeping my medals in a business cards folder (plastic) and there's no bad reaction.

[Art]

This topic comes up every once-in-awhile. This might help:

http://soviet-awards.com/forum/soviet-mi...ments.html

[travel-north]

Can anybody confirm that it's Umalatova? Where the dark spots are it seems to be peeling off.

[Lapa]

TravelNorth,

Can you please make large individual scans of the front and back of this medal.

Marc

[travel-north]

I don't know if these are much better... The small dark spots on the letters seem to be surface layer peeling off.

[CtahhR]

The picture of the reverse is out of focus but it does look to be an "Umalatova" The ribbon and document are the main "tells" of Umalatovas. The minting numbers of these for Umalatova to "award" are tiny in comparison to the number of real Soviet mints.

This particular Umalatova is a strange thing indeed and things like desirability and value are something to speculate upon. These usually sell for more that the real deal with a real document when they turn up with the Umalatova "signed" document.

[Lapa]

Guys,

I have yet to see a "real" Umalatova. If someone can post one (good scans, please, not the usual post-stamp sized pictures), I'd love to have a good look at it.

From what can be seen (that is, not much) on Travel North pictures, it does not look unusual to me.

Marc

[CtahhR]

I'll get on to that and put it in the "Umalatova" Awards section tomorrow.