Erori de culoare, text şi batere la insignele şi medaliile Organizaţiei Pionierilor din România (1949-1989)
Errors in Color, Text and Design on the Insignias and Medals Issued by the Pioneers Organization of Romania (1949-1989)

Summary/Abstract: Comparing the variety and number of insignias issued by the Pioneer’s Organisation to that of the items that present certain flows and errors, it does not exceed the percentage of the defective items issued in other fields. Most errors come from the period after 1966 as a result of an increase in the number and types of insignias produced. Regarding the flaws identified, some were the result of problems that appeared in the production process, while others are more difficult to explain. In the case of insignias covered in this article we do not consider them to be fakes, but just errors. Forgery hypothesis is rejected for several reasons. First they date from the communist period, when pioneer’s insignias had no value as collection items or per se. The hypothesis of them being produced at a later date is also rejected since a large part of the pieces presented are common ones (e.g. „Little tourist”, „Sanitary pioneer,” „Pioneer’s Merit”), so that counterfeiting them would be financially profitable. Finally, we believe that there are not enough people interested in buying flowed insignias. The errors encountered were classified in three categories “color errors”, “text errors” and “mint errors”. The errors of color include the items with one or more obviously wrong color that are not intended to represent a different variety of the basic insignia. This category also includes insignias produced exclusively with wrong colors, the commonest being the substitution of dark blue with very dark green to represent the blue in the Romanian flag or in the case of badges that regulations clearly stipulated that should be blue. A subsection is dedicated to color variations that are very common in pioneer’s insignia.The second category includes insignias whose text was misspelled. The section dedicated to mint errors includes both items with flaws in terms of shape and appearance, and those who have suffered as a result of accidents or omissions during the production process. This includes badges that completely lack color in some areas. We will also deal here with the locally issued insignias that although complying with the color schemes and overall pattern have a different appearance compared to the official ones.

• Details
• Contents