Rogi

Here is that image. Surgeon Manley earned the EK2 as a British Surgeon in the Franco-Prussian War!!! It is awesome to see this being worn with the VC. This image made my day. Thank you.

What a great photo Paul! Excellent find man

Sorry to bring this one up again, but any advice for researching French recipients? :)

Great start to the collection and here is to many more new additions

As pointed out above, already valid concerns,

I'd avoid it just for the price alone, wayyyyyy overpriced sad really but he is pricing most of the pieces on the site there at way over dealer pricing.

If you need help I can translate the doc. just send me a pm.

Probobly an award with 1 recipient (sorry to be so simple) for Yugoslavian Socialist Orders, it is the "Marshal Star"

Tito, since he was a Marshal was the only recipient. Well crafted and as expensive looking as it was in quality beautiful piece. Made from gold, platinum, diamonds and rubies :D

What are the orders made of? Could they have been melted down after the conversion to new type? That is always what I thought of when thinking about these type 1s.

well it was new to me and obviously to bene merenti, too

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/13009245_serbia-st-sava-order-2-model-1903-1945-for-n

It was great that you brought up this topic, as they go around in-frequently on the market, the only reason I've known for a while now and tracked these as they occasionally appear is because of the guy that used to sell fakes at a couple shows here. He had a lot of interesting combos and didn't mind talking about the pieces either :)

Utopis, these are well known and the pieces are fake, doctored up to look cool and make a buck, there is definatley no Saint Sava for non-Christians, I won't repeat the evidence that you've already posted.

I have a photo somewhere on the harddrive of a St. Sava 5th class for "non Christians" fakery if I find it I'll post it but our local fake seller (who advertised as fakes) used to sell these at his stall at the shows.

Wow, an amazing piece congrats Chris! :D

Hello and thank you for the answer.

I own some SFRJ miniatures - they look visually attractive to me (honestly speaking, more attractive than some of their full-size counterparts). I only have type 2 and 3, that is the ones on a horizontal ribbon bar. I actually do not know the producers, but regarding their number on market, I suspect that at least some of them (including these of the highest orders) must have been made by private manufactureres. But it is only my guess. No matter who made them, most of the ones I have were carefully produced with well visible details. Yes, indeed, to me a fake is a copy sold intentionally as an original item, and none of my sellers ever maintained they were original - whatever it would mean in this case. So I prefer to name them replicas or simply copies.

I am still missing a few miniatures, including these of the upper classes of the Order of Yugoslav Star and of the Order of Freedom, and I would gladly buy them, even if they were contemporary copies.

Best regards,

Lukasz

Could you post some pictures of the minis in your collection?

I have to agree with Paja, most of the "miniatures" sold on the market look like copies or fakes.

Private producers of any miniatures have a certain quality to them, and yes they could look more visually appealing than an actual producer (they were expensive after all) although if it isn't up to par in the quality dept. I doubt we could call it legitimate. The examples that Paja posted, I wouldn't consider that great of a quality.

Very nice piece Rush :)is it GAS ? (Sheid)

Very cool info. good job Rush

Enjoyed the photos a lot Paja :D

Welcome to GMIC Rush 79

Here we go, some foreign recipients from my collection

Count Hisamoto Hijikata, Japanese recipient of the Order of Takovo Grand Cross, you can read the research journey here

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/63092-order-of-takovo-grand-cross-research-journey/

Link to Order of Takovo Recipients- Japan, also here in this link there is Prince Iesato Tokugawa that received the Order of the White Eagle,

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/60560-order-of-takovo-recipients-japan/

and last but not least Governor General Hubert Auguste Garbit he received the Order of St. Sava, 4th class (especially interesting is the rare French made variant)

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/64083-group-gouverneur-general-hubert-auguste-garbit/

There may also be more recipients on the forum but you may have to search a bit hope those are a good starting point.

With Regards,

Igor

Ill link a couple Foreign recipients when I get home there are a couple foreign recipients of our orders

Radmilo,

Sorry for mixing up my Milosh's, been off the alcohol a few weeks thus my brain is addled. I like your replacement theory, it has to be something like this given the numbers, there are too many for them to be copies. Are there similar oddities of Sava's and White Eagles?

Paul

I'll take this question, if you don't mind Radmilo and Paul

There are definatley different variations and unknown producers of St. Savas and White Eagles and Takovos, for example, the Golden St. Sava,

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/64057-golden-st-sava/

and from this group:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/64083-group-gouverneur-general-hubert-auguste-garbit/

A lot of French Dignitaries were awarded with orders and a lot of these pieces were designed as custom pieces or after market purchases. I believe that the

recipients received the docs and sometimes the medal did not reach them in time or was not issued, so recipients themselves could purchase another variant from

private Jewellers.

Just one last comment, there seems to be glue marks in the bottom of the Cross and in one of the corners. They can be seen better in other shots of this order, so I'll ask Paja to post them later

Could be that it was repaired in its lifetime. Those missing corners don't do this piece justice, if it could only tell stories I wonder what it would say.

Excellent examples Serbman, very interesting pieces :)

Wow, awesome

While I am inclined to smell fake on most occasions I have another thought which has crossed my mind. I suspect these are privately made pieces, one has to remember that the Obrenovich dynasty ceased to exist in 1903 thank to Apis and his friends and along with them the Orders Of Takovo and Milosh Obolich. As may people may be aware the difference in time between receiving notification of the award and receiving insignia can be a very long period some times a couple of years. So someone awarded a Takovo in 1902 or 03 would not have received it due to the defenestration of Belgrade and I cannot imagine the Karageorgovich issuing Obrenovich insignia (as likely as the DDR issuing Nazi insignia). So I suspect that the recipient popped along to their pet jeweller with a picture of the insignia, thus the errors due to non Serb readers. It may be a severely flawed hypothesis but I would be interested in hearing others thoughts.

Paul

Paul, I have to agree with you, this is possible, but I think at the moment without more proof, or at least better shots of the piece, it will probably remain in the mysterious section. I think it will be a good mystery to solve, one day should a member on our forum come into possession of such a piece.

About the only other observation that I can add is that the star itself just doesn't look "crisp" to me, don't know what it is (maybe bad photos?) as well, the Cross looks crooked, plus is it a III or a IV or nothing below the MO Cypher? :D

Many thanks Alpha was glad to add this one to the collection

Great story and very little known history of US serviceman and USSR :D

In my post about my recent purchase of a silver al valore I mentioned that I live a few miles from the grave of Lt. Coleman Dewitt. He was one of 4 foreigners to earn a gold al valore. The other three were a pair of french pilots and czar Nicholas ii. He was shot down in 1918 during the battle of vittorio-veneto. He is buried right up the road from me in Tenafly, NJ. His commanding officer was Fiorello LaGuardia future mayor of NYC.

Anybody know where his gold medal is? What do you think it would be worth?

Factor in the rare value + him being a pilot = a lot of gold bricks hehehe (ok, ok bad joke)

First step is to find the medal (assuming it is engraved), after that you can probably haggle up a storm, but it won't be one of those "cheap" purchases I'm suspecting.

What awesome pics Radmilo! Must of been an amazing time man many thanks for posting the photos

Thank you all gentleman for the kind comments and I appreciate the feedback as well

Hopefully one day we will narrow down the producer. I will try and take some closer shots of the Cloisonné on the eagles and post, hard to accomplish as they are glossy and very hard to photo

In the other, previous topic,

We had been talking about Obi's St. Sava which looks similar in design (different Icon but almost same styling). Should we consider re-evaluating some features on his style of St. Sava and doing a comparison? As I recall, I think this one was also open for debate and it would be interesting to see if some features are in common to each other?

Just one more small addition, I mentioned the St. Sava 4th Class is attributed, it is Governer General Hubert Auguste Garbit's St. Sava. I've made a post of the grouping in the France section of our forum :)