MvR Victory Cup

Has anyone heard of one of MvR's victory cups being sold recently? A friend told me she had seen one auctioned by Sotheby's on a show called "Collectible Treasures" on HGTV. She recalled that the cup was in recognition of his 46th victory. This pretty much astonished me since I was under the impression that friend Ivan was in possesion of all this loot, plus much more.Has it started to trickle west? Any ideas?

I have seen recent reference to said sale as well. The burning question I have is "What does a MvR victory cup really look like ?" Does anyone on this forum have a photo ? Would they please post such an image.

This topic of the whereabouts of MvR's trophies never fails to elicit lots of discussion on Web forums. Yet we have little concrete information to go on. There seems to be some widely held belief that the Russian army systematically carried off the MvR trophies while they were busy overrunning East Prussia. Who has "solid" evidence that this even happened ?

Until someone finds some documentation of an organized plundering of the Richthofen home hidden away in Russian archives (it will be in the file underneath the boxes holding all of those silver victory cups), the appearance of solidly documented MvR trophies is little more than a pipe dream.

As a kid, I had an old 8mm fim of Richthofen, various shots of him with the crew, petting his big hound, taking off, etc. These films were available from Aero Book Club, $3 apiece in the mid 60's. (I wish this stuff was still available...does anyone know?) One scene was a close-up shot of MvR's victory cups, a hand takes one off the shelf, rotates it a bit for the camera. I recall it being maybe 2" tall, like a large shot glass or cordial glass, sortof an hourglss shape lime a small vase. I read they were silver, engraved with the #, pilot, date. Back in the 60's, I heard his mother was alive and keeping his trophy room intact(also shown in the film with the rotary engine chandeleir and fabric insignia and # patches on the walls).She must have been in her 80's then. So where can we find these movies now? They must have offered a hundred. Mine have deteriorated, sad to say.

[joegertler]

The 46th victory cup was auctioned at Butterfields, last November. At least two people (the bidder and the underbidder)must have thought it was authentic because it sold for $27,600. What information they based their bids on, I don't know.

[leo]

I was not aware that MvR's mother kept his trophy room after WWII. Didn't the Russians make off with everything and wasn't MvR's home turned over to the Poles?

leo

[rammjaeger]

MvR´s mother kept his trophy room after WWI but could not do that after WWII because the Russians overrunned Silesia. If the 8 mm film was done later than it is a fake. So the question is: When did this kind of 8 mm films come up?

Thanks for the info on MvR's mother, Russia and the trophy room. It was nice to beleive as akid it was still intact, we must have gotten that impression from some OLD information. As for the 8mm movies, they were compilations and mass marketed moch as you'd buy a videotape today. So the actual film was printed in the 60's, since faded out, but they were definitely copied from the real deal. I only bought 2 or 3 on Richthofen, but other aces were also offered.

I seem to recall a small bit from the A.P. wire service stating that a whole bunch of Von R's stuff was found a couple years ago and was going through "authentication" precesses.(?) Could be his stuff! His mother was unable to retain any of his war momentos. If memory serves, she was hustled out of the area before the Russians got there for safety, and they carted everything away. The house was trashed, but she did return for a short time. If I'm wrong here folks PLEASE correct me!
Rob