new world

There are partial award lists, a lot of them did not survive till our days.

I don't believe in this argument. Couple samples I saw had screw nut stamped by Miloshev. If you compare what his workshop made during the same period you will see that these low quality medals were not made by him.

You have very nice collection, a lot of rare awards. I love your documented group with photo of the awarded!

Being sold as Bulgaria after WW2 Royal Order for Bravery Officer's Cross of 1st Grade, 4th IV Class. Regent Issue. This is a fake with some original parts. I had similar medal years ago and it did not look real at all - base is of very low quality.

Bulgarian Observer badge looks like Godet made. Nice looking collection!

Years ago there was a famous seller of fakes, he was based in Bulgaria, I recall he went by name Kaissa/Caissa on eBay. Some of his sets were offered in bright red boxes like the one in the last photo in my above post with photos of the boxes.

Thank you Graf! This is very interesting and rare set! Very late Republican awarding and to guards of Dimitrov! You are correct, document filled in by typewriter is less common, however I've see few republican documents and it appears they switched from handwriting to typing in later years. Extremely cool set!!!!

I think they made boxes for only one award because it's time consuming and expensive to replicate stamp for name, cypher and swords, and they simply wanted to test the market to see if they can sell enough to recover their investment. Considering that they stopped with Saint Alexander it's safe to assume it wasn't a profitable project.

More of the fake boxes, similar to the ones posted earlier: Here's something different, I had a chance to inspect it in person, bright red material - similar in color to original boxes, but different smoother texture

There were repro boxes for lower classes too - I saw some for sale few years ago, there were of low quality - basic communist era style box with crude gold print on the lid, nothing near the quality of high class boxes. I need to see if I can find photos.

Here's another set with reproduction box of same style

svapr, your award is original. It's from post-Monarchy period, so called Republican issue. Royal lion was replaced with one without crown and national flag colors were used instead of Ferdinand's logo. Your example is likely 4th class and is quite rare, as these were awarded for only 1-2 years.

It's real, nice example in a case!

About Bulgarian document - it's a scarce Prince Ferdinand period award document, with fancy paper seal. These are rarely seen for sale.

Star looks original gold one.

Found an answer to why he's listed as a writer: "G also published a small book about Bulgaria and a statistical compilation about Sweden's industries in the 1890s, as well as appearing in foreign magazines, mainly with a series of articles about Scandinavian printers in The British printer." That's why he received this Bulgarian award - for writing a book about their country. Sven is a common Scandinavian name, someone in awards office made this easy mistake. Great document to a famous person! Congrats to new owner!

Mostly correct, except for his occupation, which is listed as "Writer in Stokholm" on the document. However, google points to several articles which list him as an industrialist: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_Christian_Gjestvang https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Mobil/Artikel/13085 His business was printing machines and book printers, perhaps people in Bulgarian awards department got him confused with a writer.

Perhaps we will see it offered by a different dealer?

I would be surprised if anyone buys this award for such price. My guess is this is some sort of consignment item and after it's not sold it will go back to the owner.

Hard to tell from the photos if this award was made this way or Tsar crown was replaced with Prince one. To be sure need to see this cross in person. Anyway, listed by a well known dealer for multiples of what these crosses sell for. Dealer description: Bulgaria, Kingdom. A National Order for Military Merit with Princely Crown, IV Class Officer, Extremely Rare (Национален орден за военна заслуга). Instituted in 1900. Multi-piece construction, in bronze gilt with red, white and green enamels, unmarked, extremely rare as the cross is surmounted by the Princely Crown; only a few such crosses were manufactured, measuring 50.8 mm (w) x 76 mm (h) inclusive of its princely crown suspension, very light contact, large rosette affixed to its original triangular ribbon with hook and eye, extremely fine. Cross in the top condition, and of highest rarity.

Coat of arms of Polish family on a Ukrainian medal - why? Some members of this family served Russian tsars, how does this fact agree with anti-Russian direction of Ukraine politics? " on 18 October 1506 Ostrogski pledged his allegiance to the Grand Prince of Moscow Vasili III as a boyar,"

I think have a group to a Romanian officer, who had a Royal award and continued to serve during People Republic period. I recall his Royal award was listed in his early Socialist period officer document.

Cross for Courage is not listed as part of photo new awards system. Does it mean it's discontinued?

That symbol in the center - what does it mean?

he has some Russian, French, Serbian and Montenegrian awards. Perhaps a diplomat?