paja

Wider screw nuts comparison.
Up - Partisan Stars, down - IKOM screw nuts of the following decorations from my collection which I consider 100% authentic:
-Brotherhood & Unity II
-Merits for the People II
-Merits for the People III
-Partisan Commemorative Medal 1941

The rest of the photos I posted in the above mentioned topic, these are some of the ones I really dislike, there are nicer examples.
First star doesn't have "rooster" hallmark but it has a "double vision" number.

Some of us noticed a large amount of "shinny" IKOM orders flooding the market, I think it's about time to start a separate topic about this matter.
The list includes the following decorations:
-Partisan Star 3rd Class
-Partisan Star 2nd Class
-Order of Brotherhood and Unity 2nd Class
-Order of Brotherhood and Unity 1st Class
-Order of Merits for the People 3rd Class
-Order of Merits for the People 2nd Class
-Order of Labor 2nd Class
I would also add one higher decoration to this list - Order of National Liberation!
All these orders have a few things in common. They are early IKOM "screw" decorations which look brand spanking new, at least to me, even though they should be from the forties and/or the fifties.

I'll post a few examples of every decoration from the list, since the Partisan Star 3rd class is the first I'll go from there. I don't know if these were being awarded at all, I have never seen IKOM made Partisan Star with an awarding certificate of any kind, let alone with a matching number. They are hallmarked (IKOM and rooster) and numbered (20K-29K).
Couple of orders I already posted in the Yugoslavian Partisan Stars topic, notice the rifles on these two.

11 hours ago, Mister No said:

I did not test it for silver only for gold. And after that, it was enough to me. It's no longer with me, I only have photos.

Many thanks for the images! Look pretty much the same as the "golden" stars, I can't make out the number, is it 1414?

11 hours ago, Mister No said:

He did not buy it directly in IKOM, but from a man working in IKOM. Full bucket.
Order of merit for the people of the second and third class. Order partisan stars of the third class. Brand new packed in nylon bags with ribbon.

I will open a separate topic about "shinny" IKOM decorations today, thanks for the information.

16 hours ago, Eric Gaumann said:

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???

Three weeks sound perfect to me  
That sounds like a really serious device, nothing us common mortals can get our hands on. Out of curiosity I checked how much are they going for, seeing all those $$$ made me feel dizzy 
Anyway, many thanks for doing this, we should get some answers.

Thanks, looking forward to hearing the results.

On 10/28/2017 at 22:40, Mister No said:

I tested the Partisan Star 1 class (soviet made). To my surprise was not gold. Just a good gild.

I know Yugoslav made Partisan stars were gilded but I don't remember hearing that about the Soviet orders. Is it in any other way different than the examples made out of gold?  Do you know what's underneath the gilt? Silver?

If it's not too much to ask could you possibly post couple of photos of that particular order?

On 10/28/2017 at 22:40, Mister No said:

I also know a man who bought 7,8 years ago a full bunch of silver Orders from IKOM. He sold them all.

Did I understand you well, this man bought a bunch of orders directly from the IKOM factory around 2010?

Yes, that would be much easier but at the same time it would raise some suspicion. Apart from that we have to factor in the numbers as well, they have to be manually imprinted.

On 10/28/2017 at 22:25, Eric Gaumann said:

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.

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                     

Apologies for not replying sooner. Mister No already wrote about the silver content, small silver hallmarks looked like this:
Rooster in square - .950
Rooster in pentagon - .900
Rooster in hexagon - .800
They were introduced in 1933 and Serbia still uses very similar pattern today.
I've been looking at the back sides of these IKOM made Partisan Stars, I think they all have "pentagon" hallmark, silver purity .900.

That's a nice selection of Yugoslav decorations, everything looks OK to me. Orders have a nice, natural looking patina, definitely not "shinny" examples. Those suspiciously new looking orders have higher numbers.

Did you perhaps manage to test the Partisan Star during the weekend?

IKOM started producing decorations in 1945, ZIN as well, perhaps even earlier than IKOM. Even though you had "domestic" decorations, Soviet made ones were being issued even during the '50s. I remember someone inherited Soviet made Bravery Order awarded to his family member in 1951, also we recently spoke about Stevo Opsenica's People's Hero Order - Soviet type awarded in November 1953. So both types of orders, Soviet and Yugoslav, were being awarded at the same time.
We all heard the "storage" stories, Bosnian finds, stash in case of Soviet invasion and similar, but how true are they? You never hear who, where, when, how much etc. That's really a convenient back up story, but I'm getting tired of it, whenever you see a flood on the market you can hear it. How realistic is that apparently large quantities of decorations are still being found in some warehouses in 2017? Looks like the Chancellery of Orders had a storage on every corner  I'm thinking about opening a separate topic about "shinny" early IKOM decorations.
This might sound like a silly question but did anyone do the silver test with these orders? 

It would be great to see an awarded piece for the comparison purposes, of course if they exist at all. I haven't been around that long but before "someone found a stash" how often could you see IKOM made Partisan Stars on the market? I presume not a lot if any and now the same thing is happening with the second class.

"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."

The problem is that these should be from the '40s-'50s. I believe after that period Yugoslavia stopped producing numbered orders with screws. Considering that they should be around 60-70 years old it's a bit unusual that most of them have that "factory look". And that's not the case only with that particular order, I've been seeing a lot of Brotherhood&Unity and Merits for the People orders like that, I don't like them one bit. 

As for the "double vision" example, it's not the font, factories did use different types, but how they look like.

And what about those screw nuts? By the way you can see those "shinny" not very good looking screw nuts on some of the other orders I mentioned. 

In order to make things more easier I put all 8 of them on one photo.

Just for comparison, 4 slightly different IKOM screw nuts, large type, from my humble collection.
-Brotherhood & Unity II
-Merits for the People II
-Merits for the People III
-Partisan Commemorative Medal 1941
IMHO 100% authentic pieces.

Screw nuts.
Considering that these were most probably never awarded they can't be worn out...

A couple more questionable back sides (and rifles), at least in my opinion.




 

"Double vision" back side.
OK photos are a bit blurry but it's not just that, take a look at the number and the Roman numeral.

First of all I'd like to point out that I'm not claiming some of the orders I'll be writing about are 100% fake, there are a few issues that concern me and I'd just like to hear other people's opinions. 
We talked a lot about MD Partisan Stars before, 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? Does anyone have, for example, an inherited awarded piece or a piece with a matching number on the awarding certificate?
I did some rethinking after talking about the "2nd class flood" (I'll come back to that subject later) with other collectors and now I'm not sure if all of these 3rd classes are authentic.
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?

Looking at the photo on his Wikipedia page I'd say you're most probably right.
Just a small remark, to my understanding he was a regular officer - officer on active duty, when he got retired he became a reserve officer.

Very nice collection, thanks for sharing. Those suspension "balls" are really unusual, their size seems somewhat disproportionate.

Nice photo, it's a bit curious to see a general and a people's hero without a single first class order.
Order of Merits for the People might be 1st class but I think lower class is more likely.

Very interesting, with those four decorations he must be one of the most decorated foreigners.
Thanks for sharing!

No need to apologize, small mistakes happen to everybody  
Thanks again for the photos, we don't see Zimmerman's examples that often.

Stevo Opsenica's Order of the People's Hero from sammler's base.

I'm sorry to hear that, hopefully you'll be able to obtain all the decorations he once had. Best of luck with your search!

Remaining photos.