BalkanCollector

1 hour ago, Igor Ostapenko said:

Montenegrin king Nikola I. The insciption says:

"To my dear Danilo

dad"

King Nikola had a son Danilo but I don't think that's the case with your photo. I would say that some other patriotic Montenegrin gave this photo to his son.

21 hours ago, steveBobby said:

Another Yugoslav recipient of the Bulgarian Order of Courage

Great photo! I'm not 100% sure but I think it's Rade Hamović, people's hero of Yugoslavia who was a major general at the time this photo was taken.

9 hours ago, Muh said:

Yeah i agree, tho its sad to see how some of the stuff that never left home suffered worse fates..

Absolutely true.

4 hours ago, Igor Ostapenko said:

Here's an interesting story about Miladin Zarić from wikipedia.

"At the end of World War II and liberation of Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia on 20 October 1944, during their retreat, the Nazis have mined the Old Sava Bridge, in order to stop the progress of the Soviet Red Army and the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia that were chasing them. They would have got away with it if there was not Miladin Zarić, a school teacher and a plain civilian with a considerable experience in demining gained previously during Balkan Wars and First World War. He saved the bridge from demolition, by cutting the detonator wires, making it the only large bridge in Europe, beside Ludendorff Bridge that the Germans didn't succeed in demolishing while retreating. The importance of his act is even bigger considering that the next bridge connecting Belgrade and Syrmia was in Šabac, 90 kilometers away."

This explains why he's wearing a Yugoslav, Soviet and Bulgarian WW2 awards on this photo along with his Balkan Wars and WW1 medals, plus some interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia orders.

I got very lucky this year with udarnik (shock woker) badges.

Here's another one for the labour action Omladinska pruga 1947. / Youth Railway 1947. Railway Šamac-Sarajevo (242km) was built from April 1st 1947 until November 15th 1947.

8 hours ago, Muh said:

i actually bought the Titovka on top from Gerd a few weeks ago, its coming back home in (ex)Yugoslavia 😆

It's nice to see the titovka coming back home since most of the stuff that went abroad most likely never will.

Another early shock worker (udarnik) badge. Novi Beograd, New Belgrade 1948.

8 hours ago, new world said:

Yugoslavian partisan officer with Bulgarian Bravery Order 4cl 2 grade

 

Quite interesting. His rank is a major.

A rare shock worker (udarnik) badge from the labour action Highway Brotherhood and Unity Zagreb-Belgrade in 1949. This one is special because it's an army type for the soldiers of the Yugoslav Army (JA) who participated in the action. See the rifle in the star and the letters JA.

13 hours ago, Zulu_00 said:

Unknown medal awarded to Chambliss Johnson. A former US Marine wounded in Ukraine. Any information would be appreciated. I will provide any updates if my mates in his unit get back to me. 

The award document says it's a medal "To the Defender of Ukraine. For honor! For Glory! For the People!".

Youth forest structures/facilities 1947 (Omladinski šumski objekti 1947). I don't know what kind of structures or facilities they were building but judging by the badge's design it should be something related to railway. The only additional info I was able to find is that they built 36 of forest structures.

11 hours ago, Komtur said:

Prof. Walther Bruck

How incredible, such an amazing group!

20 hours ago, Kallarati Heroik said:

It is fake. Modern repro.

If you want people to take your opinions seriously, you should back your claims up with arguments.

One of the rarest of labour action badges, Youth Factory "Unity" 1948 (Omladinska tvornica Jedinstvo). The factory was founded in 1946 in Zagreb as a factory for process equipment for food and chemical industry. It was nicknamed "the factory for factories". First it existed in a nationalized workshop but the main factory hall was built in 1948 after 6 months of work. Around 1,300 of youth participated in its construction which makes this badge quite rare.

Today, there's a "New Unity" (Jedinstvo novo), a small business with about 20 employees which is nothing compared to the factory back in the day. Most of the factory's land was sold but some parts still remain in ruins which are surrounded by new buildings. There's even a part of factory which is now a "Chinese Wall", a wholesale center with 72 Chinese shops.

Yet another tale of Croatian 1990s destroying of domestic industry...

The copper factory in Sevojno, Serbia that's still operating under the name Valjaonica Bakra Sevojno. It was built from 1950 until 1952.

Kombinat 1950 Sevojno (Комбинат 1950, Севојно).

No problem! As for the uniform and sword, the uniform is definitely a Kingdom of Yugoslavia ceremonial uniform, so not the regular uniform for every day use. Which regulation exactly, I don't know since it's not my area of expertise. It's hard to tell exactly what kind of sword/dagger he has but I'm leaning towards one of those long ceremonial swords. Again, not my area of expertise so I hope someone else can give you more information on this matter.

Regarding the sources to acquire the medals and other stuff, ebay is a trustworthy source. There's also emedals and other various Serbian online markets. Good luck though! Some of those medals are rare and could be hard to find for a reasonable price. I recon the proper uniform will be even harder to catch.

Amazing set of medals! He wasn't an officer but actually a brigade general (lowest general rank) of the artillery.

His medals are the following: (written in the medals and orders section)

Remembrance Medal for the War 1912-1913 (First Balkan War)

Remembrance Medal for the War 1913 (Second Balkan War)

Albanian Remembrance Medal 1915 (check out Great Serbian Retreat or Albanian Golgotha); awarded on November 6, 1921

Golden Bravery Medal 1912-1913

Golden Medal for Zealous Service 1912-1913

Silver Medal for Bravery 1913

Order of the White Eagle with Swords 5th class; awarded on January 14, 1918

Order of the White Eagle with Swords 4th class; awarded on April 11, 1920

Order of Saint Sava 3rd class; awarded on April 11, 1920 (I'm not sure if it's the exact award date since it's written in the same row as the order above)

Order of the Yugoslav Crown 4th class; awarded on September 6, 1930

Order of the Italian Crown 5th class; awarded on September 6, 1930 (again, not sure about the date because of the same reason as Saint Sava 3rd class)

Another medal which isn't mentioned in the section about his awards but he's wearing it on the photo is the King Peter Remembrance Medal 1914-1918 for WW1.

Pioneer City and Railway (Pionirski grad i željeznica) 1948. This complex was built on the outskirts of Zagreb, Croatia and it served as an excursion/picnic/vacation camp for children (pioneers). The complex was built from 1948 until 1951 and I've also seen badges with the year 1950 on them but they have a vertical pin. Pioneer City's glory days are long gone and today it's called The City of the Youth (Grad mladih) but most people still call it by its old nickname "pionirac". Today, it's a walking/recreation park mostly in a poor condition.

It's been a while since I got new additions to the theme so here are two more I got recently.

Youth railway Nikšić - Titograd (today Podgorica), Montenegro. The construction started in April 1947 and the railway was put into operation on July 12, 1948. Today, the railway is 56.5km long, it passes through 12 tunnels (total length of 3,439m) and across nine bridges (overall length of 279 m).

The breast star looks a lot like the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. 

To be honest, I haven't even thought about the Russian/Ukrainian, I just typed the first few words and it popped out. Sometimes less really is more.

13 hours ago, Megan said:

Magic... I hadn't turned that up. Thank you!

Searching in English often gives zero results so knowing of cyrillic definitely helps a lot.

The pictures are from this site: https://www.raritetus.ru/znaki/medali/rf/mchs/medal-za-zaslugi-v-22551/

Very interesting, thank you for creating this topic!

2 hours ago, paul wood said:

Balkan, I  agree with you about any form of compulsory subscriptions, I am anti  ads, as I feel that advertisers have taken over control of the internet and what you see is often what they want you to see. I am afraid advertisers want more than money, they want influence.

I cannot agree more about the advertisers, that's why I have ad blocker and my current blocked ads counter says it blocked 1,231,066 ads since 2016 and I remember having over two million ads blocked on my previous computer. Also, I was watching some hour long documentary on youtube and by the end of it, the blocked ads counter for that video alone was about a 1,000. It's mind boggling how much of this crap you get served online. That being said, I wouldn't mind getting these ads if it's going to a good cause such as keeping GMIC running. Of course, if most of others agree but I'm sure Nick will find better and most suitable solution.