Live In History @collector86 - Tumblr Blog

Business card autographed by 22nd and 24th US President Grover Cleveland - the only POTUS that served two non-consecutive terms.

#autographs #president trump #usa president #cleveland #grover cleveland #signature #jsa #business cards #history #american history

Just added this great set of authentic Soviet shoulderboards today! Here you can see summertime boards of 4-stared Army General (second highest rank in Red Army) - circa 1970’s, but before 1974 when boards for Army Generals were changed from 4 stars to one big star and military symbol. The middle one is Marshal of Aviation, also summertime type. There were only 32 Marshals of Aviation. And the last one is uniform board of Marshal of Artillery - only 13 of them ever existed.

Shoulderboard of Marshal of the Soviet Union. USSR Marshal was the highest rank in the Red Army and only 41 people were awarded to this rank (Stalin was also promoted to Generallisimus, but even after that was wearing Marshal's uniform). I bought this shoulderboard at the military exhibition. The material and quality says it was made by TsEPK43 (a Moscow factory which made uniform for Stalin, Brezhnev, Gagarin, Budenny, etc). However this shoulderboard is a "novodel" made by the same people from the same materials in 1990's - means no Soviet Marshal even wore it.

Hero of the Soviet Union Trofim Zvonkov (1905-1978). Another great addition to my collection. You can see his original medal "Gold Star" #4087 along with Small Hero Certificate (heroes used to carry them everywhere to receive common perks in daily life). Certificate with personally hand-signed in ink by Mikhail Kalinin, de-jure USSR leader for 25 years and closest Stalin's comrade. During WW2 Zvonkov was a common Ukrainian soldier. In October 1943 during the Dniepr battle his unit successfully made 20 (!) counter-attacks against Nazis. Zvonkov received his Hero award in 1944. I assume award was sold by his relatives in 1990's. The Star has scratches like someone was testing it for gold and the first page of Hero Certificate with a Hero's photo is torn out.

RRR Rare! An unissued "specimen" Passport of Belarus, this version of passport was used in 1993-1996. This passport replaced Passport of the USSR and then was replaced by new type of Belarusian passport. Passport contains national coat of arms "Pahonia" which was used as official in 1991-1995. As you can see this passport was never issued, specimen copy. I'm not sure how many of them exist in nature, most likely not more than 20-30 copies overall. I purchased it 4 years ago.

#passport #belarus #паспорт #пашпарт #беларусь #belarussian #документы #documents #ex-ussr #ссср #европа #раритет

Order of October Revolution - 2nd in rank in the USSR hierarchy and in my opinion the most beautiful order. Around 106,000 people were awarded in 1967-1991. I purchased it more than 6 years ago.

Book by Jimmy Carter signed by him and his wife Rosalynn

#jimmy carter #usa president #usa politics #signature #autographs #history #books #signed books #signed by author #signed by both #president

This is the highest award of the former USSR - a medal "Gold Star" also known as "Hero of the Soviet Union". Only 12,800 were ever awarded. This one was awarded to Alexander Matveev, an ace pilot, in 1943. He was only 22 years old when he became a Hero. Based on wikipedia, Matveen died in 1982. I don't know how his star came to the market, most likely it was sold by his relatives in 90's (a common story for most Soviet awards). The box with red velvet is also an original one. Large and small diplomas that usually came with the Star, unfortunately, are missing.