Bryan

I do see a big difference when I look closely. The hair, the mustache, the shoulder, the wreath, the ear, even the writings look thicker on the copy. Andrew, shall we only look at the details or also the color of the enamel?

I wonder how much the family or the vet received out of the $175 k?

So do you think that the robbery that occured to him was all made up! (Insurance)

Ed, if you don't mind I will post pictures from my friend's award that I have photographed last summer and posted on a French forum. For a so prestigious order I was surprised of his poor quality. The earlier ones were much nicer and heavier with some gold I think. The very first ones were also numbered. Somebody said on another forum that the earlier Worker's Hero orders sell for about 1500 EUR and the later one (Honecker period) sell for around 350-400 EUR right now. Original signature from Honecker

The 50,000$ is just the estimated price. Who knows, it might sell over that price!

You have a nice late version of the Order of the held der Arbeit. I was amased how cheap these later versions were done when I saw the one from a collector friend last summer. The order is so light! Ed can you tell us if the document is really hand signed by Honecker and not printed?

Reverse

One of my pride in my DDR collection. East German plaque that was taken near the city of Neustadt bei Coburg in 1984 at the border between Bavaria and Thuringia. That's what the seller told me.

Inside

...

Close-up on the decal.

Here is my favorite DDR helmet in my collection. A M-56 helmet with Volkspolizei decal.

This will be auctionned on Thursday, January 11, 2007 in New York! http://www.russian-medals.net/pics/NYSale16.pdf

Uwe, welcome to the forum. Maybe you will have more answers if you post your question in "Soviet & Eastern Block Orders, Medals & Decorations" section. This thread is only an informative game and not everybody are coming to this thread. Viel Spass im Forum!

It might be useful to some of you. A free dictionary English-Russian, Russian-English to download. http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/russian.html

Who said the Soviets were always following the regulations. They were not like Germans or Austrians. I have some groups of order that do not follow the regulations, but I will not going to post anything else here, I do not want to highjack once again Sergei's post. Sergei, let us know what the citation says once completley translated.

Christian it maybe just me, but I would prefer to have a wrong used ribbon one a medal than to put a "new" post Soviet era ribbon just to comply with the original color it should have. I hate to have new ribbons on my medals. It shows no wear and no history for me. That's why I have never changed ribbons to my medals even if they should have an other one. Like this Sevastopol medal with an Odessa ribbon. I don,t know if it was done by the vet or by a previous collector, but I prefer to keep it like this.

Wow, if you are able to do this and have permission to photograph them, it could be interesting in a Yugoslavian order reference book. Piramida, do you know by chance any good yugoslavian reference book?

I would guess he was in the first to get the Order of National Liberation!

Thank you very much Eric! The ones from Indian River are also tempting!

Well Christian it seems you find it. Seller says onl: Maybe you should ask for a picture of the reverse. I can't afford such thing until I'm finish with my studies. So here is the link: http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/677-Medal...070778019QQrdZ1

On eBay right now! Any good?

I guess you are 100% right about this, but I'm not disapointed at all. I do not find that ribbon bar very attractive even with 2 Red banners or 2 Red stars. The design is rather ugly.

Christophe, it might looked like something else because of the light of my scanner, but when I look, the lines are red-white-red. So I presumed 2 Red Banners. However you might be right. The red is not the good red for Red Banner. Maybe I should try to photograph them.

Mmmh that's rather expensive to travel to Libya alone. I'll see if later if I go to Turkmenistan or not. I would like to go, but I guess other countries might be more inviting.