Monday, September 3, 2012
It's been a while since I have posted my regular Top 10 weekly items. I know some of you miss reading this and are now eager to know what are the top sellers in WWII on eBay.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest award that could be bestowed by the state to a civilian or soldier. It largely replaced the Order of Lenin which could be given for feats that did not qualify as heroic. During the lifepan of this award there were more than twelve thousand awarded with most coming during World War II. There were a few individuals who received it multiple times (although only rarely more than twice). An interesting group of recipients are the Soviet cosmonauts. It was also given to Leon Trotsky's assassin which is a little ironic. The first recipient was a little more deserving. Anatoly Vasilyevich Liapidevsky took part in an arctic rescue of the crew of a doomed ship. He landed on a man made air strip on floating ice and ferried the ship's crew to a safe return. The aviator eventually was promoted in his career to the rank of Major General of the Soviet Air Force. Interesting for those familiar with the trials and tribulations of fighting a war in Afghanistan, the Soviets decade long struggle in that country resulted in sixty-five awards being presented. With the fall of the Soviet Union the award was discontinued although it was replaced by awards such as the "Hero of the Russian Federation". The remainder of these auctions were among the best selling eBay auctions for the Russian category.
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ITALIAN DAGGER, ITALIAN KNIFE, MVSN, FASCIST
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Italian L3/33 (CV-33), Flamethrower variant at the Bovington Tank Museum
The PAI Polizia Africa items are reminders of the Italian colonial past in Africa. The PAI was a formed in 1939 and stood for the Police of Italian Africa. They were equipped with light weapons including armored cars and motorcycles. They also employed some tankettes which were a unique but mostly unsuccessful weapon used during the war. These small tanks did not have a true tank gun but usually were equipped with a machine gun, grenade launcher or flame thrower. They would be manned with one or sometimes two operators. The concept failed because ultimately the weak armor was no match for more sophisticated weapons. In the PAI the tankette of choice would have been the Itallian L3 (photo here from Wikipedia).
Checking in on some nice Italian items that sold recently on eBay its clear that there has been some spirited bidding lately. Each of these top picks gathered more than a dozen bids on there way to making the list.
ITALIAN DAGGER, ITALIAN KNIFE, MVSN, FASCIST
