BalkanCollector

Hello Ed! You have some very nice badges. I see you're from Canada so I believe two Canadian volunteers got these badges. Each got a Youth Railway 1947 badge and a Foreign Brigadier badge, and one of them also got the Shock Worker badge. More info about the badges below. You have two of these badges I posted in the top row: In the middle is a Youth Railway 1947 shock worker badge. Shock workers were those who exceeded the labour norm. In the bottom row you have two rare badges to foreign brigadiers (labour action participants) who participated in the Youth Railway labour action. You can see the similar design and correlation to the badge in the top row.

I'm looking for some info about this edelweiss hat badge. Is it original? If so, how much is it worth?

Congratulations on this significant milestone! I've been watching this thread for 3 years now and I always look forward to your next post. You are doing an important work of documenting full cavaliers' single medals and groups and the current situation on the market.

Impressive medal bar and biography! Thank you for sharing.

Could we possibly see the whole uniform? Amazing artifact!

I'm looking for info about this badge. I believe it is a Romanian paratrooper badge but I could use confirmation. Also, any other details such as period would be much appreciated.

Remarkable piece!

Amazing group, thank you for sharing!

I wouldn't be surprised...

Here's a spomenica that looks like it could be the one for gravestones. It is currently for sale at aukcije.hr. The seller claims it's 13,5cm in size and made of duraluminum. https://www.aukcije.hr/prodaja/Kolekcionarstvo/Militarija/Ordeni-i-medalje/Jugoslavija/1362/oglas/SPOMENICA-1941-PLAKETA-13-5-CM/3100967/

Intereting question. I've had a post-WW2 issued medal with a pin which seems somewhat similar to the one in the middle. I'm not 100% certain it was the same type but I think it looks closer to it than the other two.

Very interesting! I didn't know they had molds for gravestones. I guess there must be plenty of those since people died and were buried in different places.

Some time ago, there was a mold for spomenica for sale at the Croatian auction site aukcije.hr. I can't find it on the site's sold items and it seems like I haven't saved the pictures either since I can't find them in my archive unfortunately. It is possible that someone got their hands on the mold and is making these fake pieces. Silver costs a lot more than some other metals and these fakers just care about top profit. They could easily put some lead to gain the proper weight and I'm sure they'll perfect their fakes any time soon.

Very interesting article, thank you for sharing!

To be honest, if you didn't say one of these is fake, I probably wouldn't even question the originality looking only at the pictures. Couple of weeks ago I talked to a seller at the antique show and he told me that there are fakes of "spomenica" and that he only sells real ones. I thought he was just trying to give good impression, especially since I know this seller from before, he is all sweet talk and overall a very invasive seller. Which one is fake? Now I'm questioning everything I know about these but I'm guessing the one on the left since it looks really rough and especially those cracks on the reverse which seems to point out that it's cast.