new world

It's absolutely possible these medals are all to the same person, but we will never know for sure without documents.

I found waht your friend meant. On page 79 (my edition is from 2002): During the final stages of WWII in 1944-45 following numbers of Bravery order were awarded: 1st class - 1 3rd class 2nd grade - named 5 generals and others, 4th class - total of 1928, including: 4th class 1st grade - 77 4th class 2nd grade - 1851 12 people received both grades of 4th class.

I checked the book and the numbers in it are very different from what your friend told you. According to the "Military Order For Bravery" table in Appendix 2 the following quantities of Bravery order were awarded from 1880 to 1908: 1st class - 14 2nd class - 12 3rd class - 39 4th class - 243 There was no division of 3rd and 4th classes in to Grade 1 and Grade 2 at the time, it only came in place in 1915.

The design stayed the same for most of the time this award existed. One major change was when the crown was replaced with the wreath (when the regime changed from monarchy/regency to republic), but that doesn't apply to your award w/o crown.

Marie, Queen of Rumania (left), Joe Boyle (centre) and Ileana, Princess of Rumania (right), summer 1918, Bicaz, Rumania.

This is scarce medal, only 5,000 awarded around 1878 and not that many survived.

Medal looks like WWI manufacture. Here's same award with ribbon and case. Just because it came with German awards from WWII period doesn't mean it's made during Tsar Boris time. It could have been awarded to a German during, it was common practice.

Yes, it had the box, larger than normal size. Here's mine in the case

Super award for very low price!

Great portrait!

This award is quite rare in third class. It is 1941 version, specially created when Bulgaria got involved in WW2. As Bulgarian army rarery saw combat during WW2 - the awardings to Bulgarians were few. Good amount of these awards went to the ally Germany, you can find some 4th classes and Soldier grade awards to Germans. It's unknown how many were awarded. There are no centralized lists in existance, perhaps there were some, but likely didn't survive the war and several regime changes in Bulgaria.

These croses from Boris period were made in Germany and before end of WWI in Austria.

boonchinheng, Your cross looks normal, I don't see any warning signs.

Wow, what a guy! Amazing citation as well!!!

To add to what Graf said - I've noticed fakes of high Bulgarian awards started appearing on the market around 2007. Most of them were offered by a dealer from Bulgaria named Victor. Over the last few years he's been operating on eBay under several names, currently he sells under account "kaissa64". His tactic is to operate under one name for some time, then close the store and open under different name. Apparently because of the buyers discovering that he sells fakes and probably of complaints they file with eBay.

Yes, that's the bad dealer mentioned earlier. His "diamond" awards are bogus, recently made, most likely stones are not real. His award boxes are newly made.

I know the guy. If 2nd class is coming from him then I would stay away from it. I bought few items from him, most were junk with some original parts, but with added newly made parts, as well as with new soft enamels. In best case you will get franken awards, with parts from several different awards, or damaged/repaired items. I sent back most of items I bought from him, there was only one I kept.

My star is 92mm. I think I know which star you are referring to, I saw it and there were some questions... It looked more like modified 2nd class star.

Nice set! I guess we will never know when the modifications to the cross were done. I've seen some official modifications - when swords were removed. You can see example of such change in my post #29 in this same thread with green St Alexander 1 class: the swords on top were removed from the star, remains of the place where swords were attached is visible.

Here's my massive breast star for Grand Cross grade of St Alexander with swords in the middle. Very rare award from Balkan Wars and WWI period, only few were awarded to high-ranking Generals for merits during war.

Congratulations! Order with lilly is very rare!

Do you guys think this star is real?

measures 10 cm x 8.6 cm.

reverse

How about this star? Is it real?