University Graduates badge

[Adrian Stevenson]

This badge was instituted just after the war. But this one dates from the 1970's due to the cheaper construction.

Cheers, Ade.

[ericfg]

Thought I'd share mine as I have a new computer and a new, huge monitor and a new version of Photoshop *and* new program to import images from my old camera. Holy crap, updating 10+ year old hardware and software is making the web even more funner!!!!!!!
But, uh, I digress. Here's my two:

[StefanM]

Who were the Russian makers of quality insignia? I must admit I know nothing about Russian militaria and the quality of some of the award badges and medals are exceptional and quite a surprise to me given the poor quality of Russian produced "consumer" goods.

[ericfg]

Who were the Russian makers of quality insignia? I must admit I know nothing about Russian militaria and the quality of some of the award badges and medals are exceptional and quite a surprise to me given the poor quality of Russian produced "consumer" goods.

Monetny Dvor, Moscow Mint, Leningrad mint, Pobeda factory are but a few of the big ones.

[ericfg]

I must admit I know nothing about Russian militaria and the quality of some of the award badges and medals are exceptional and quite a surprise to me given the poor quality of Russian produced "consumer" goods.

Right after the Revolution, and this is all just my opinion of what happened, the Soviets had all the experience and precedent of the previous regime's badge and medal makers at their disposal. So what they did was turn away from the excess's of the Romanovs (Faberge &c) and instead used that as a propaganda tool. The designers used all their tools to get the Red Banner and Oktober Revolution and Socialist Competition onto rewards for the masses. And up to about the 60s the quality was really high.
Strangely enough quality control in the western, Capitalist world started dropping around the same time.