07-27-2010, 07:52 AM
deValcourt Wrote:It is a truly interesting and unusual piece - though I doubt from the way the work was done on it, a unique one (just incredibly scarce). As ph3s pointed out, the second or subsequent awardings of ORBs were done most often without the numbers 2, 3, etc. early on and I'm sure during wartime. It makes perfect sense to me at least, that this was a second awarding and the mint simply reapplied the necessary serial number and the "N 2" in such a way that it could not be missed by the owner. It is possible that the mint could have "punched in" a "2" as I've seen done, but circumstances may have been such that the option was not available. I also sgree with the idea of researching it as a second award possibly proving more fruitful...
And, point in case, this is exactly the type of reasoning that the faker was expecting to get from his "unsuspecting" customers :laff
Marc
PS: nothing personal here, Phil ;)
