Glory.

[NTAT]

Commissar,

In my opinion what you saw was not that unusual. I have a nice Red Star I picked up in 1992-93 that's had the serial number polished or ground off the back. It came with a Orders Book that documents the individual winning the Order of Glory II & III class as well a Red Star.

Early on when medals/orders started showing up after the fall of the Soviet Union it was not to unusual to see orders with the numbers ground or polished off. In agreement with Devalcourt some individauls feared prosecution for selling their decorations because it was illegal for them to do so.

So to get around the problem some individuals ground the numbers off so they could sell them. In theory this foiled any attempts to have the orders tracked back to the individual.

In my case who really knows if the RS that came with the booklet belongs to the recipient or not. But for $25 USD in 1992-93 it was worth it to have the Orders Booklet.

Keeping that in mind I'm sure there's still more of the altered orders out there floating around. Hope this helps.

Gerry
NTAT