05-10-2005, 09:18 PM
If this came from a Museum, I assume the museum sold it after independance at it was not stolen??
Chuck In Oregon Wrote:Hi Alexei
No, no serial number and no provenance other than that I mentioned. It almost certainly came out of the Georgian Museum of Soviet History after independence, but I do not represent that it definitely did. Before I purchased it I asked a couple of Georgian "experts" -- knowledgeable guys and friends whose opinions I respect, FWIW -- to examine it and tell me if they thought it was authentic. They both said "Hard to say, there’s nothing obviously wrong but I've never seen one of these before" or words to that effect. My closest collector friend there said "Maybe 95% or better that it's real, but we don't have anything to compare it to." The old guy who I bought it from is very highly regarded and well-respected, and that also influenced my decision. In the end I decided that if there was nothing clearly wrong to those guys and the deal didn't smell bad, I'd rather do the deal than wonder if I should have.
What the heck. What’s life without risk? Well, yeah, “safe” does come to mind.
Chuck
