Carol I

Unfortunately I had no chance to talk to him. I spotted him in the crowd and took a snapshot.

Thanks for the replies. If it is a brotherhood, I guess it should be something else than chefs and vintners as the man is in the academic world. There is also the possibility that he is a very talented (amateur) chef with an academic degree... On the other hand, the brotherhood badges on the site you indicated are a bit more ... "BLING BLING" (as Alex K had put it) than 'The Order of the Mink' above.

What is the badge in the photo below? I have jokingly named it 'The Order of the Mink'.

The Order of the Star of Romania and the Order of the Crown of Romania were reserved for officers. The Military Virtue ribbon indicates bravery in the face of the enemy.

Thanks for these interesting details. If anyone has images to illustrate these differences, please post them (perhaps in a new thread to avoid hijacking this one on fakes of the Order of Michael the Brave). According to Wikipedia, before war Maurice Couve de Murville was an inspector of finances and then director of finances in the Vichy regime. Then, in 1968 he was successively Foreign Minister, Minister of Finances and Prime Minister. At the date of the award mentioned in the certificate (14 May), he was still foreign minister, so it probably referred to an official award like the Order of the Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania. I would therefore be inclined to believe the hypothesis of a mix-up of items. The question whether the commander's cross was also his from the time as a Vichy official is interesting, but open for debate. Carol II had a son from his marriage with Zizi Lambrino, Carol Mircea Lambrino, who died last year. Mircea also had a son, Paul, who is currently trying to attract attention onto his origins, but support for his cause is fading. Paul brought to Romania some of Carol II's awards for the 2003 funeral at Curtea de Argeş, but I did not hear of him conferring any awards.

Thanks for this very informative (and scary) post. Last spring on eBay there was the badge below with a certificate, said to have been bestowed to Maurice Couve de Murville, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1958 and 1968. According to the description, the document was dated 14.5.1968. Without seeing an image of the certificate I have thought that the items in the set were erroneously paired (an old commander's badge of the Order of the Star of Romania with a certificate for the third class of the Order of the Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania), but in the light of the information above... On the other hand, the date of the award was some 15 years after the death of the unnamed royal making private bestowals... Does this badge have the Celjavo or the da Costa particular features? How common was it for a French government official to receive unofficial awards? I think the French law is quite strict on this issue, but maybe it does not apply in this case.

Thanks for this piece of information. Do you know whether they made any Romanian orders? Is there any way to tell them apart from the originals?

The reverse of the above:

As far as I know, none were awarded this far and I wonder whether any were officially produced. Anyhow, given the quality of the new awards, I would not be surprised if some of the fakes would look better. On the other hand I have seen the image of the first class star below that was on sale on eBay some time ago. It is made according to the descriptions in the regulations of the order, but the seller had some other dubious looking badges which made me wonder whether it is a fantasy badge or an unofficial one made with original dies prepared for future awards. I really hope that new awards would look better than this.

Here is an image (not very successful unfortunately) showing the thickness of the badge. Does it look like one of the Spanish ones you mentioned?

Order of. St. Vladimir These seem to have poor manufacturing quality which could not fool many collectors.

Order of St. George

Order of St. Andrew

Are these badges on eBay from the same source? Order of St. Andrew (collar)

I don't, but nevertheless it would be useful to gather images of all known models of fakes.

The Order of Michael the Brave, 1st class... He was one of the four British recipients (well, five if you count King George V).

Reverse

Another badge that was on eBay some time ago. Obverse

Reverse

Just spotted this fake badge in the window of a medal dealer. Asking price: 1000 EUR. Obverse

No, they did not. They revived however several orders of the complex system of awards existing during Carol II's reign (the Order for Loyal Service, the Order for Merit, several other orders of merit etc.). See the file describing the new system of awards from the Chancellery of Orders.

Yes, it was, in 1998 (see Order of the Star of Romania). In fact several of the old orders were revived between 1998 and 2003, but unfortunately the manufacturing quality is gone...

The State Mint in Romania also manufactures the collars and this means that they have the same quality as the other grades. (The thumbnail above has a link to a high resolution image from the Chancellery of Orders.)

A Romanian order on the other hand would indicate an officer rank during WWII.

Had he been a member of the medical staff taking good care of Romanian POW or the civilian population in the occupied territory, he would probably have qualified for the Sanitary Merit Medal after WWI. For sanitary merits yes. But the ribbon is wrong in this case. If he got the Knight's cross of the Order of the Crown of Romania, then it most likely is a WWII award according to the ribbon.