Victory.

[Lapa]

Christophe,

Since we are talking about that all-time favorite, here are two pictures of an original one. Please don't ask whose it is, I have not the faintest clue about it.

Regarding the possibility that one of them is in private hands, we must have a look at the list of receipients and try to define which one(s) might have escaped from the care of their owner.
1. All the ones awarded to Soviet Marshals are supposed to be accounted for, and are now either in the Almazniy Fund, the Central Museum of the Armed Forces (5) or the Ermitage (1).
2. There were 5 foreign receipients:
. Eisenhower: his order is in the care of his Presidential Library in Abilene, KS
. Montgomery: his is on display at the British Museum
. Tito: supposedly held in a museum in Belgrade
. King Mihai: was supposed to have been sold by the Romanian Government. I recently read that upon abdicating, Mihai was given a 6-car train to leave the country and was allowed to take with him pretty much all that he wanted from the royal palaces. Dragos information seems to confirm this fact. It would have been logical that in a first instance, he took his awards with him, before any other painting, furniture and the like.
. Rol-Zhimersky: General in chief of the Polish forces. Now, all I know about him is that he was still alive about a year and half ago. About his order ???

Some additional information I recently obtained: the original order was for 30 pieces to be manufactured. To this end, 9kg of platinum and 5400 diamonds (I believe that is the exact figure) were provided to the jewellers in charge of the task. If that is so, then 10 "spare" ones would be floating around somewhere.

I would suggest that the most likely candidate to be held in private hands would be one of the non-issued ones; the Soviet Union has been known to have sold secretely many artworks and other precious items. Alternatively, if it were one of the issued ones, the most likely option would be Tito's, Rol-Zhimersky's or King Mihai's, although there is now a doubt cast over this last one.

Marc