07-10-2010, 09:40 AM
Guys, guys, guys!
Let's not mix up everything here, please.
What's all that talk about voenkomat stuff here?
Effectively, voenkomat medals were struck in brass and then gold plated, but that was basically starting in the early 1960's, these medals having a struck, rounded ring.
Jens showed a medal that was clearly made in the 1940's, with a soldered ring.
Fact is that, for whatever reason, a small quantity of wartime made medals were gold plated at the mint. It has be suggested that they were to be awarded to "other than ordinary" people; I personally do not believe in this as I have seen many instances of ordinary soldiers, NCOs or even civilians having received a gold plated medal.
The only thing that we can tell today is simply that these gold-plated Leningrad medals are scarcer than the non-plated ones, and that is about it.
Now, an interesting development on this theme is what the Russians call the "polished" medals. Effectively, these are early strike, gold-plated Leningrad medals that were then refinished at the Mint; the most common variant is a mirror-like sky surface, some other scarcer variants have mirror-like letters, rim, spike, etc. Here are a few examples.
Marc
Let's not mix up everything here, please.
What's all that talk about voenkomat stuff here?
Effectively, voenkomat medals were struck in brass and then gold plated, but that was basically starting in the early 1960's, these medals having a struck, rounded ring.
Jens showed a medal that was clearly made in the 1940's, with a soldered ring.
Fact is that, for whatever reason, a small quantity of wartime made medals were gold plated at the mint. It has be suggested that they were to be awarded to "other than ordinary" people; I personally do not believe in this as I have seen many instances of ordinary soldiers, NCOs or even civilians having received a gold plated medal.
The only thing that we can tell today is simply that these gold-plated Leningrad medals are scarcer than the non-plated ones, and that is about it.
Now, an interesting development on this theme is what the Russians call the "polished" medals. Effectively, these are early strike, gold-plated Leningrad medals that were then refinished at the Mint; the most common variant is a mirror-like sky surface, some other scarcer variants have mirror-like letters, rim, spike, etc. Here are a few examples.
Marc
