Eric Gaumann

Question: Military Orders such as this and the Order of Military Merit; who was eligible for these? Could a Private, or even a Senior Sergeant receive any of these orders? Or were these reserved for commissioned officers only?

I was finally able to get a T1 3c OPA and am very satisfied. Enjoy some images of the new acquisition and one shot of of a pair together.

Some very rare medals that are seldom shown. Do the documents for the 30th and 40th vary from the military or civilian version?

This is on US ebay at the moment as well. Close numbers.

8316 is a rare bird. The arrows you use point to look like, maybe, very poor manufacturing at the soldering point. I imagine the main medal blank being coined by trained professionals and then sent along to some noob to attache the screw and was just too drunk to get it right. The yellowish tint to the screwpost and the surrounding area raises questions as well.

Boy, this image came out great! Gives one an idea how massive these are, no?

A couple of images I made today of an older member of my collection. Not the best but I feel better about my camera work today. The entire third page of this post is very interesting concerning our 'shinny' thread I think. Lots of speculation from 8 years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I did a forced patina on my PS3 since I found a very cheap, easy and chemical-free method of doing so. Before and after images provided. Not quite a natural patination, which may have been due to not cleaning the materials before the procedure, but I like the new look. And it will get better over time, too. PM me for the secret method. If I know you and trust you I will share it.

You are very welcome! This was a fun adventure. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this done before. I want an Order of the People's Army 3rd; maybe I should buy one of the un-marked versions and see if it is Tombak or not? Maybe? One never does know for sure, but I feel more confident now than before the test. Not a bad investment in silver, either. I bought mine on US Ebay for $20 (plus $4 or $5 s&h). Spot silver price is about $11. What is the weight on the Mondvor and Ikom PS3s? I guessed about 22g. (Both my scales are broken.)

OK boys, the results are in regarding the content of my 'shinny' PS3!! As you can seen in the photo the content is as follows: Star body: Ag - 93.51%, Cu - 6.39% Screwpost: Ag - 90.21%. Cu - 9.79% Screw-plate: Ag - 4.15%, Zn - 34.99%, Cu - 60.86% Ag = silver, Cu = copper, Zn = zinc. As explained to me the star body and post are indeed 90+% silver. The discrepancy in Ag content between the body and the post was deemed as 'wear and usage'. I take that to mean the silver plated screw-plate rubbed off a bit onto the post. Or perhaps the posts were from a different casting with slightly different composition. The screw-plate is actually silver plated.

Another thing that come to mind is the seemingly large numbers of medium grade Yugo orders that come with their award cases. Usually awards came in cases that were mostly discarded after receipt. Many soldiers of the world got their awards and wore them on their uniforms. The boxes they came in were either thrown out, kept in a footlocker separate from the uniform, or maybe kept at home. Why are so many Yugo awards for sale with their award cases? Granted there was not much going on in the Balkans in the 50s and 60s (correct me if I am wrong) but are most of these awards with cases surplus from unawarded stock from The Mint? Did maybe Tito and his cult followers expect Yugoslavia to be such a major player in Balkan or Mediterranean politics that they just went wild with minting awards that would never be bestowed?

This one is decidedly NOT shinny.

Sheesh, that's super extra shinny. Surely this example's been polished by a professional in the very recent past?

Would we consider these two style screwplates as being often seen with 'shinny' awards?

Five torches! I see only one six torch example on Sammler base and it's number is 47,985. It has a vertical pin which I always equated with more recent emissions. Wow, those are really shiny and new. Are they just new old stock (NOS)? Are they franken-orders made up of old parts and new parts? Or are they downright copies? Could the government have made these for export? In other words to raise revenue? That seems wildly speculative since these orders are still so common. I was typing my previous reply when you posted this! It may just be coincidence, but we might be on to something here. Edit: effing auto-merge.

The more correct term would be 'rotating tool engraved'. I think the Mondvor site uses that term for the late-era Soviet awards engraved in that manner. Apologies for being pedantic. It's easier to differentiate between the two styles. I'm sure it's fine. Your right side order shows what I always assumed to be some sort of lacquer that was applied to a lot of later Yugo awards and contributes to some 'shineyness'. You lacquer has failed in a few spots and some patina has started to develop. At least that's my theory.

Here's my shiny PS3. It's being discussed on the PS thread but it helped ignite discussion about what we're thinking may be much more recent emissions or strikes. And here's an image of the same awards with arrows point to what I consider excessive filing or saw marks as initially noted above.

Polished at that point and then vacuum sealed? That might explain things. Or, that's how copies entered the mint. I'm starting to think we should start a new thread about "shinny", recently found Yugoslavian awards as this discussion is now more than just my 'new' PS3.

So, I just got back. The good news is they can use some sort of new-fangled electronic device to test for not only content but purity and what other metals are in the alloy. Using a machine described to me as something like this: https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/XL2PRECIOUS It does no harm whatsoever and the results are almost instantaneous. The bad news is it's gonna be about three weeks before they'll have access to the machine. So now we wait. I requested that the star itself, the screw-post *and* the screw plate be tested so in three weeks we'll know a lot more specifics than we do now. I also took my 20 Year Anniversary of the (Soviet) Red Army medal to be tested as well. I've been told that it's probably a fake but if it turns out to have the correct composition of silver alloy then it might end up being real. Three weeks isn't that long, right???

Getting ready to go there right now. Will check in with results later today.

You could be right. I mean 'like new' orders 60 years after the fact? But then again no one has identified these as reproductions. Yet. That's a good idea. A fellow on the Italian Soviet forums has done similar with Soviet screwplates and has raised awareness. Not that I've seen. I think the hallmarks make everybody complacent. What should the content be, do you know? 900? 925? Should the post be silver as well? I can get this done, easily. I have a connection in the jewelry business. If they're open tomorrow I'll go then. If not, Monday. Anything else you want tested while I'm there? My current collection is modest: YUGOSLAVIA Orders: Military Merit 2c T1V1 Brotherhood & Unity 2c 6,657 T1V1 IKOM late 40s Hallmarked National Merit 3c 23,366 T1 IKOM late 40s Labor 3c T2 ZNB

My guess is that they refer to the codes for the blank document. The '12-8-48' would be a date code (Aug.'48); when it replaced the previous one (at least that's my guess: the 48 refers to 1948.) The other numbers are maybe printer's codes or office codes or some such. Edit: Thanks for the translations!!!

That is a good question! It's kinda funny, on one of the documents you showed they used an old (1948 series) document and didn't cross out the '4' in '194_' instead showing "19452". Maybe these are from the future? Also in the image I focus on there is an official stamp. Can any of you Cyrillic readers see a location mentioned? On the larger document I can make out Beograd(Belgrade). It might help us with storage locations although it's probably not related. Not to mention it's also seven years after the war ended; probably all the awards were in one location by that time.

I check a few other sites/forums and found NO Ikom pieces with award docs. Not a one, not even talk about seeing one somewhere else. I think very few, if any, Ikom pieces were awarded. Talk was that the Mondvor pieces were sent in batches to different locations and my guess is that as the stock became low at some locations plans were made to implement the Ikom production. But the war soon ended and a few of the Mondvor pieces and all the Ikom pieces still had not been awarded. At that point they went into storage either for re-issue for lost awards or, as some speculate, another conflict to arrise where these extra awards would be needed. Ugh, those screwplates are horrible. So rough and 'unfinished'. I should have one tested for silver content but I know what the answer will be.

> " but what about IKOM made orders? Were these being awarded at all? I ask because I don't remember seeing an awarded IKOM Partisan Stars, do you? " No, I don't. But, that's not my area of collecting with Yugo orders, specifically. > "Does anyone have, for example, an inherited awarded piece or a piece with a matching number on the awarding certificate?" No, sorry. > "I started collecting images of IKOM orders just recently so unfortunately I don't have a very large photo archive. Let's start with these two, look at the rifles, do they seem OK to you?" Yes. IMO these examples were altered during finishing. I think that during that process which might include filing and/or buffing the original profile of the rifles was altered. Unintentionally. We've all noticed the later Yugo awards were of lesser quality than the earlier awards in many cases and this rifle situation is indicative of that. Also, most obviously, the enamel work on the Ikom Partisan Stars is of much lesser quality. And I am about 95% sure that these high numbered stars were never issued. Maybe bought in bulk by some speculator/investor at some point in time with the hopes that Yugo award prices would skyrocket like their Soviet comrades. > "Double vision" back side. Photos are a bit blurry but it's not just that, take a look at the number and the Roman numeral." I think I have noticed at least one alternative font for the serial numerals. You example seems to have that as well as what I describe as lesser quality construction/finishing.