Red Star tags were cut from a piece of wing skin on which a parts of an early-war Red Star insignia of the Soviet Air Force was located. It is an highly exceptional piece as it still carries a hand-painted early Soviet Air Force insignia, a Red Star “outlined” in black. The brush strokes on the black paint are still clearly visible. During WWII, the Soviet AF used several variations of Red Star. The best-known version, featuring a white outline, began appearing after the summer of 1941 and remained as a standard insignia through the end of the war. Before that, most Soviet aircraft carried a plain Red Star without any outline. For a brief period however, a small number of IL-2s displayed a Red Star with a thin black border and the wing fragment that I used in this release came from exactly that short-lived and rarely encountered marking period!
Tags #081 to #083 were cut from the central area of the Red Star. Although #083 has some structure on the back, it also has a crack on its front face. Tags #084 to #087 were cut from the border of the star and are tricolored. What is particularly interesting is that the hand-painted black line is not very solid, and you can see the red paint underneath it.
Additional information:
Dimensions: approx. 88 mm x 37 mm (3.46″ x 1.45″)
There may be a slight difference between the color shades on your screen and those on the actual tags.
