paja

I'm very skeptical  because I really don't remember seeing them before at all, not a single one (not counting fakes and replaced screw nuts) and then all of a sudden a certain number appears in 2016 in a very short period of time.
In the beginning 2nd and 3rd classes were made only by ZIN/ZNB and IKOM made 1st classes. At some point IKOM also started producing lower classes, when exactly I don't know but it was later because they are with double horizontal needles. By the way IKOM was even remaking some of the older ZIN/ZNB screw types.
You can't find them in Sammler's base and I'm pretty sure no one mentioned them in the literature.
On top of everything their quality is not that great, especially for decorations which should be from the '40s-'50s. I'll make some comparisons tomorrow, it's getting late over here 
Since the only difference between 2nd and 3rd class is the gilt it would be logical to assume IKOM made both of them. Has anyone seen a 3rd class like that? I haven't.

I know that photo, it's a cropped version, on full size you can see Georgi Dimitrov on the left. It was probably taken before the Tito-Stalin split which affected relations between Yugoslavia and Albania.
He's also wearing Yugoslav Order of the People's Hero.
 

Labor Order 2nd Class 
This one's particularly interesting. First of all is this type even suppose to exist?! I don't remember seeing IKOM screw type at all (not counting ZNB orders with replaced screws nuts, of course) and I'm pretty sure you won't find it in books. 
They hit the market couple of years ago, just a few examples got sold and then they disappeared. A few examples look very suspicious, apart from that "cheap" look some of the details are pretty bad and they feel "soft" if you know what I mean.

4XXXX

It's been a while since my last post, let's continue. 

Order of Merits for the People 2nd class
Numbers 30K-50K, hallmarked, narrower screw nuts.
A few 3XXXX examples.

White label with the name of the recipient (army officer) is glued to the box (I photoshopped it).

He was awarded with the 1st class of the Yugoslav Partisan Star.
I read somewhere that Yugoslavia revoked his decorations after the Tito-Stalin Split in 1948.

I was posting photos of various 3rd classes with different hallmarks before, here's a new example.
This one has "double hallmarks", its wreath is also hallmarked.

I believe #3 is the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, looks like with brilliants, above #1 is its star. 

Dave Danner was so kind to post photos of an order just like that HERE with the following explanation:
One of the rarest Portuguese decorations, the United Badge of Order of Christ and the Order of St. Benedict of Aviz, awarded to those who had already received the Order of Christ and the Order of St. Benedict of Aviz.
Apart from that Combined Order of Christ,  Aviz and St. James of the Sword also exists.

Excellent! Thanks for the photos and congrats on finding it in such a great condition 

Don't mention it, Alex.
Best regards

On 11/10/2017 at 20:42, Alex K said:

Interesting, I've located a picture which I think is the award, one question, the attached is un-enamelled, the above picture looks like his version is enamelled, is that likely or is it a trick of the light on the picture of him?

Apologies for not replying sooner, I believe he's really wearing enameled - golden award.
Here's a photo of one such example found here.

 

I was thinking the same thing, perhaps a certain number left the factory with that type of screw nuts. Apart from those three I've seen one more, #235X, unfortunately I can't remember where.
If you find yourself in Belgrade we should go testing Serbian beers  

The names of the recipients gave them away 
3rd class #2480 was awarded to Akhmetov Galim (Ахметов Галим), guards lieutenant.
2nd class #1543 was awarded to Ilchenko Petar Danilovich (Илченко Петар Данилович - Serbian; Ильченко Петр Данилович - Russian?), guards major.

Order of Merits for the People 3rd Class
Numbers over 100K, hallmarked (IKOM and rooster) narrower screw nuts.
Photos found in two ads I stumbled upon recently.

3 hours ago, gerd vantyghem said:

Here are my documented stars so far  

What an amazing collection of Yugoslav Partisan Stars, we don't see many documented orders, thanks for the photos! 
It's interesting to see that two out of those three stars were awarded to Soviet recipients.

3 hours ago, gerd vantyghem said:

1. 3rd class (2480), with replacement screw plate

Does that replacement screw plate look like the one for the Soviet 1st class? I ask because we already saw two stars like that in this topic, both awarded to Soviets, numbers 2376 and 2394 - pretty close to 2480.
#2376 LINK
#2394 LINK

Excellent!  And much sooner than three weeks  So the purity of the silver (body) is even higher than .900, it's closer to .950 and the screw plate is made out of silvered brass.
Many thanks for testing the order from your collection and posting the results!

16 hours ago, Eric Gaumann said:

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.

Total number of awarded decorations is estimated to around 2.000.000. Number of decorations awarded during the war is not that significant, we're speaking about tens of thousands. First decorations were issued in September 1944, and during the entire 1945 55.000 of them were awarded, bigger part probably after May. So only around a percent or two of the total number of decorations were awarded during the war. I can understand if most of the boxes for the "field" decorations were discarded but I don't see why would someone throw away the box of the decoration issued during piece time.
Soldiers and officers probably wore their decorations every day during the war and some time after it but I don't think that was the case later. Regulations from 1946 state that members of the military personnel were obliged to wear decorations only during the state holidays and military ceremonies. 

16 hours ago, Eric Gaumann said:

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?

I think it's quite the opposite, decorations with boxes were most probably awarded. Those allegedly unawarded shinny pieces are being sold without boxes. Sellers sometimes combine orders with boxes at their disposal, apart from that I've seen packages filled with boxes, someone "found a stash" of those as well.
Some of the ones I've seen in the past include:
Labor Order 3rd class (blue)
Labor Order 2nd class (gray)
Merits for the People 2nd and 3rd class (red)
Order of the Republic 2nd and 3rd class (red)
Military Merits Medal (blue)
Merits for the People Medal (red)
Labor Medal (gray)

Thank you as well for posting links to ads from njuškalo.hr, the seller labels those two orders as type 1 (#7718) and type 2 (#7697). If I'm not mistaken apart from different numbering "font", type two has no hallmarks nor Roman numeral. The one from Facebook with bad screw nuts looks the same. 
By the way asking price for those two from njuškalo is 600 HRK or around 80 EUR.

On 11/5/2017 at 23:12, Eric Gaumann said:

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

I won't claim it's fake but how many unnumbered screw orders have we seen in the past? I remember only one which seemed a bit suspicious to me, especially the central medallion, its torches were "grainy".

22 hours ago, BalkanCollector said:

Some more shinny stars being offered on facebook by the same seller.

He is selling the 2nd class for 3,000 RSD and 3rd class for 1,500 RSD.

Another 2nd class IKOM type he's selling for 12,000 RSD. "The rare type" as he says.

3.000 RSD is around 25 EUR and 1.500 is obviously half of that amount.
12.000 is a bit expensive, you can get them around 25-30% cheaper 
What's up with its screw nut??

One more unusual shinny order from emedals, unlike the previous examples this one's not numbered.

"A Yugoslavian Order of Brotherhood and Unity; 1st Class - With Golden Wreath (1st Class), in silver, silver gilt and enamels, 47mm, in .800 silver, weighs 41.4 grams, maker marked on reverse, silver hallmarked, un issued, in mint condition (in paper pocket of issue)."
LINK

18XX

Order of Brotherhood and Unity 1st Class
I've seen around 30-40 pieces with 17XX-18XX number, hallmarked (IKOM and rooster), wider screw nuts. Since they started appearing price has dropped and now you can get them for as low as 60 euros online.
A few 17XX examples





 

Thanks for posting those, Ilinden is an obvious fake and a pretty ugly one. The sad thing is that the original decoration is not much more expensive, I think its market value is about 150 euros.
I'm not 100% sure about the remaining two but they do look suspicious. I think India and Burma medals shouldn't be "polished" but "matte". There was some talk about fakes in the past when they started appearing more often on the market.
People's front order might be OK, but there were too many 2XXX on the market, at least in my opinion, that especially goes for 27XX, 28XX and 29XX. Since I started saving photos of this decoration I've seen about the same amount of decorations with number in 0001-2000 range as decorations in 27XX-29XX range, that doesn't sound right, right? 

26 minutes ago, Eric Gaumann said:

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

Yes, I'll post a list to make things easier, it's based on what I've seen so far.
Partisan Star III - both styles 
Partisan Star II - wider
Brotherhood&Unity II - both styles (wider more often)
Brotherhood&Unity I - wider 
Merits for the People III - narrower 
Merits for the People II - narrower 
Order of Labor II - narrower
National Liberation - narrower

This of course doesn't mean anything because they are easily interchangeable.