Appropriate Medals for Display

[EricFG]

There is a trick I suppose. Practise on a cheap medal a few times first.

When I do it I loosen the small metal bar on the back of the suspension with a small screwdriver taking care not to wreck that small bar and taking extra care not to mess up the ribbon.

There are the two ends of the ribbon under that bar. slide only the top one out and slowly undo it where it folds around the suspension until you get back to the top. Practise putting it back a couple times. Then, with the 5 place suspension ready take it all the way off remembering to start with the underneath part of the ribbon end first.

Also, start reribboning the 5 place bar at the *right* end first (Left end when you're looking at the reverse) with the lowest ranking medal first. For example you would mount the 70 year Jubilee medal first, then the 60 year Jubilee, the 50 year, and so on.

The idea is to match the fold or wear lines on the ribbon of the original suspension to the new suspension. Otherwise it's a dead giveaway that it's not original.

[Lapa]

Originally Posted by Snobok

...EDIT 2: Tretov, I noticed that in those pictures, some of the medals that the fellows were wearing were modern Russian medals. Are some of the modern Russian awards often given out to former members of the Soviet armed forces?

Snobok,

Most of what you call "modern Russian medals" are in fact unofficial medals issued by various organizations (Umalatova, Veterans' Council, etc), most of which are available for sale to anybody.

There are, however, some official medals that were issued to veterans, such as the 50th Anniversary of Victory in WWII, but all in all, these issues were/are quite limited.

Marc

[EricFG]

Originally Posted by Snobok

Hey I thought of one other thing. I am planning to place these medals on a 5-medal suspension. How does one transfer the individual medals to the suspension without damaging the medals or ribbons? From looking at some of the medals, it looks like there is a simple trick to the process..

Patrick did a nice series of photos on re-ribboning here: Putting Ribbons on suspensions

[Tretov]

Originally Posted by EricFG

Patrick did a nice series of photos on re-ribboning here: Putting Ribbons on suspensions

Ah, thanks - I was looking for the thread a few days ago but did not remember the topic.

[Snobok]

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for photographing individual medals and awards? All of my pictures that I have taken have come out terrible.

[Tretov]

Originally Posted by Snobok

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for photographing individual medals and awards? All of my pictures that I have taken have come out terrible.

Check if your camera has a setting for detailed pictures. On mine, this is designated by a small flower

[Lapa]

Snobok,

Turn the flash off or everything will be overexposed. Use soft, indirect lighing instead.

Marc

[EricFG]

Originally Posted by Snobok

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for photographing individual medals and awards? All of my pictures that I have taken have come out terrible.

Brian, shall I?

[Esteban_cool]

A good idea(which I use often) is to take the picture with flash, but not focusing on the award itself. And choose the "flower" image on your camera.

Then you photoshop the image cutting your award, enhancing color, resolution, etc., and you have a showable pic of your award.

[Snobok]

Thanks guys. I got the camera figured out now. I have not needed any sort of close-up detail until now. There was a close-up setting I used and that worked out much better.

I was trying to take some pictures of a few of the awards that have arrived for the uniform. It looks like the ORS I got off of E has had the original serial number ground off, but I can see remnants of the number; I knew this would be the case when I bought it, so I'm not terribly worried about it. There is no serial on the ORS other than the remnants of the original. If a person were issued an award of some type, would the state confiscate the award when the person died and perhaps reissue the award to another person (recycling?)?