Yugoslavia Order of Merit for People

[wlodzimierz]

Bryan your order and box are consistent. This is 2nd class in 2nd class box.

I commented those other posting where 3rd class order is presented in second class box.

To correct my mistake: on March 15, 1961 and not 1963 the name of order was changed.

The name of order 'Order for National Merit 2nd class' was changed on March 15, 1961 to 'Order for National Merit with Silver Rays'.

Interesting is fact, that appearance of this order was 'somhow' changed in latest order you will see fighter made from yellow metal, earlier was black.

best regards

waldemar

[Mister No]

Order for National Merit with Silver Star

I just love model after 1973. Down is 2cl convert to 3cl.

[Gunner 1]

Earlier in this thread, Wlodzimierz illustrated what was generally thought to be a First Class obverse with a Second Class reverse. Illustrated below is what appears to be a First Class obverse and illustrated on the next reply is the reverse of the same badge that indicates that it a Third Class badge.

Edited June 22, 2008 by Gunner 1

[Gunner 1]

The reverse of the First Class badge above. Notice it is a Third Class reverse, which bears an IKOM hallmark, but the pin attachment is marked "ZIN - KOVNICA". The badge is numbered 155115 and it has definitely been converted from screwback to pin attachment. From the evidence available it would appear that the badge was originally a Third Class badge produced by IKOM and later it was sent to "Zin-Kovnica" which converted it from screback to pinback and may have also gilded the rays to make it a First Class badge. It appears from the photographs that the First Class/Second Class badge illustrated by Wlodzimierz has exactly the same characteristics other than the difference in the original class of the reverse. Comments? Gunner 1

Edited June 22, 2008 by Gunner 1

[Gunner 1]

An Order of Merit for the People 2nd Class cased, IKOM produced screwback variety This is the obverse and nut:

[Gunner 1]

The reverse numbered 47798:

[Gunner 1]

And the red case with maroon lining:

[Gunner 1]

An Order of Merit for the People Third Class screwback variety produced by IKOM: The obverse:

Edited June 22, 2008 by Gunner 1

[Gunner 1]

The reverse, numbered 41176:

Edited June 22, 2008 by Gunner 1

[Gunner 1]

And the case:

[Mister No]

Hi

Your 2nd cl order is not original with case.

Number is to high(only 39534 award -1985) and case is period 1945-1961.

[Valter]

Bryan your order and box are consistent. This is 2nd class in 2nd class box.

I commented those other posting where 3rd class order is presented in second class box.

To correct my mistake: on March 15, 1961 and not 1963 the name of order was changed.

The name of order 'Order for National Merit 2nd class' was changed on March 15, 1961 to 'Order for National Merit with Silver Rays'.

Interesting is fact, that appearance of this order was 'somhow' changed in latest order you will see fighter made from yellow metal, earlier was black.

best regards

waldemar

Gentlemen,

"mistakes" like these and others you posted here are quite common with yugoslav orders. I got confirmed from recepients that they did award mismatched pairs (i.e. old type case, new typa awards, and vice versa). It was also not uncommon - for lower end orders - to award older types that were "in stock" and it was possible that awards with relatively low serial numbers were awarded the same year (but in another town//republic...) as orders with s/n higher then total number of those orders awarded. A bit of sloppines not unkonwn to Balkans...

And even more mismatching pairs are "made" recently by collectors and dealers.

[Georg14]

Hi, Gentlemen.

What is the weight difference of silver and tombak these screwback orders?

Strange(for me) situation: high numbers are with the silver hallmarks, but earliers without… What is the reason ? Is it known the numbers range of silver and metal screwacks ? Thanks.

[paja]

Greetings Georg,

As everyone can see there are many different variants of this decoration - IKOM, ZIN, on a wide or narrow screw, vertical, double vertical or double horizontal needle, silver, tombak, numbered or not, with Roman numerals on the back or without them, converted types, third class with golden star and silver fighter and the other way around, names of the order were changed as well... That diversity is is the main reason why this particular Yugoslav order is one of my favorite ones.

Now to try to answer some of your questions. All of the orders with hallmarks that I have seen so far were made by IKOM (but not all of the IKOM orders are silver), even the ones with, for example, vertical needle with ZIN or ZNB inscription... Belgrade factory was just remaking them, taking IKOM orders, cutting off screws from the back and adding their needle instead. I have no idea why this was being done, perhaps IKOM didn't develop their type of needle at the time so in the interim period they were sending orders to ZIN to remake them.

On the other hand I have never seen ZIN (ZNB) made order with hallmarks, I can not say with absolute certainty that they are all tombak but I consider them as such.

One more thing that can cause additional confusion is that people sometimes put wrong nuts on orders so you have IKOM order with ZIN or ZNB nut on the back and vice versa.

Based on everything that I have seen my personal opinion is that orders with low numbers were made by ZIN and that IKOM most probably started from some larger number. Perhaps the ZIN was the first producer of the order and then after some time IKOM got involved...

Edited January 31, 2014 by paja

[Georg14]

Thank You.

Is it right, that some of these silver orders were without hallmark ? So why I asked about the weights difference of silver and tombak screwbacks.

And I think it will be easier to compare the weight of the orders, but who knows the weight of the silver and tombak orders(the same manufacturer and same class) ?

Regards.

[paja]

That's something that I would also like to know... Are there ZIN orders made out of silver because I have never seen one with hallmarks that was not originally made by IKOM and then converted.

I'll try to make a list of 3rd class general types.

*FIRST TYPE - Golden star, silver fighter*

-1. ZIN - wider nut with inscription "ЗАВОД ЗА ИЗРАДУ НОВЧАНИЦА"

Never saw a piece with hallmarks.

Numbered - the lowest numbers I saw so far had three figures.

-2. ZNB - narrower nut with inscription "З.Н.Б. КОВНИЦА"

Again no hallmarks.

Numbered - higher numbers, don't remember seeing one bellow 70K.

-3. ZNB (ZIN) - vertical needle with inscription "ZNB (or ZIN) KOVNICA"

Hallmarks on converted IKOM pieces, the rest without them.

Patrially (or sometimes completely) visible numbers on those converted IKOM orders, otherwise than that unnumbered. Beware, sellers sometimes use this in their favor - they claim to have low number order!

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_02_2014/post-7937-0-55687500-1393002032.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_02_2014/post-7937-0-43514600-1393002043.jpg

-4. IKOM - wider nut with inscription ">IKOM< ZAGREB"

-5. IKOM - narrower nuts with inscription ">IKOM< (or IKOM) ZAGREB" Couple of slightly different types of nuts.

Almost all that I have seen were hallmarked. When it comes to not hallmarked pieces I saw just couple of them over the years and I can't say for sure that they weren't ZIN with wrong nut (don't have the photos).

Based on my experience -4. are in range from around 10K to 70K, -5. from 70K to 200K

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_02_2014/post-7937-0-75389000-1393002079.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_02_2014/post-7937-0-22402800-1393002087.jpg

-6. IKOM double horizontal needle

Don't remember seeing one without hallmarks, probably remakes, higher numbers, in most cases from 120K to 160K.

Edited February 22, 2014 by paja

[paja]

*SECOND TYPE - Silver star, golden fighter (1973)*

-7. ZIN - vertical needle with inscription "ZIN KOVNICA"

a) IKOM hallmarks on remakes, numbers also partially (or sometimes completely) visible.

b) No hallmarks and unnumbered.

-8. IKOM - double horizontal needle

a) Hallmarks, high numbers, probably remakes.

b) No hallmarks, unnumbered.

Edited February 21, 2014 by paja

[paja]

As for the weights, unfortunately I don't have one of those precise pocket scales so I'll measure couple of orders with my digital kitchen scale

-1. ZIN - wider nut

with a nut 33g without 26g (#7K)

35g; 28g (#19K)

-5. IKOM - narrower nut

34g; 30g (#93K)

34g; 31g (#158K)

-7. b) ZIN - vertical needle (no hallmarks, unnumbered)

25g

-8. a) IKOM - double horizontal needle (hallmakred, #142K)

31g

Edited February 21, 2014 by paja

[Georg14]

Like shows my small experience in this thread (all screwbacks, without nut):

IKOM hallmarked 2 kl. – 34,5g (#23K), 3 kl. – 35,9g (#101K),

no hallmarked 2 kl. – 24,4g (#10K) 3 kl. – 23-26g (#25K,73K).

ZIN never seen a piece with hallmarks,

2 kl. – 24,8-25,6g (#6xx,4K) 3 kl. – 26-27,5g (3K,4K,6K).

Of course this is not enough for the final results, so You're probably right in Your post #64.

Thanks and best regards!

Edited February 23, 2014 by Georg14

[paja]

Don't mention it Georg, thank you as well!

-IKOM 2nd class, wider nut, hallmarks, #19K

34g; 28g

-ZIN 2nd class, wider nut, without hallmarks, #1K

32g; 25g

-ZNB 1st class, vertical needle, without hallmarks, unnumbered

28g

[Georg14]

Good Day.

Few more questions: manufacturer "ZIN" ("ЗАВОД ЗА ИЗРАДУ НОВЧАНИЦА") and "ЗНБ КОВНИЦА", when it was renamed? What number ranges each of them? Anyone knows?
Another 2 cl. IKOM wider nut (order looks like IKOM too) with only one hallmark (hexagon) - weight 24.7 g.

It means – IKOM hallmarked early (#10K,12K) orders weighed 23-25g (as without hallmark), but higher(#20) hallmarked already 33-36g. The difference in size is not seen. Maybe earliers without hallmarks were silver too ?

It's not clear again… Thanks.

[paja]

Greetings,

About the name, I believe it was changed twice. They first made orders with wider nuts with the inscription "ЗАВОД ЗА ИЗРАДУ НОВЧАНЦА" (ZAVOD ZA IZRADU NOVČANICA - ZIN). After that we had those narrow nuts with inscription "З.Н.Б. КОВНИЦА" ( ЗНБ stands for ЗАВОД НАРОДНЕ БАНКЕ - Latin alphabet ZNB - ZAVOD NARODNE BANKE).

Later they switched to vertical needles, earlier orders had ZNB KOVNICA inscription and the latter ZIN KOVNICA.

So in my opinion the order was like this

-1. wider nut ZIN

-2. narrower nut ZNB

-3. vertical needle ZNB

-4. vertical needle ZIN

I was not able to determine when were these changes made...

When it comes to 3rd class wide nut type numbers I've seen them mostly in the range from three figures to 20K but I've also seen some numbered 73, 74, 75K. If someone didn't change the nuts there could be a gap.

I don't remember seeing order with narrower nut below 78K, but I also saw some numbered over 200K. But I doubt they really produced at least 120K orders of that type because they don't show up that often. When I think about it they were mostly numbered either 7X, 8XK or 18X, 19X 20XK, so there could be a gap there as well.

So if all of this is correct and if the numbers didn't overlap it could be that the border between wide and narrow nut types is somewhere between 75 and 78K.

I am not sure about the numbering so take all of this with reserve, I could be wrong, these are all just my speculations.

Now about the IKOM, weights and hallmarks.

Looks like the wide nut orders have only one hallmark, rooster in hexagon (.900 silver) and that the latter type with smaller nut has two, IKOM and rooster.

Are all of measures you gave us without the nut? I ask because non of my orders weights 33-36 without the nut, together with a nut they wight up to 35.

The fact is that I do not have one of those very precise scales, but I think that even mine can not be wrong for more than +-1g.

I definitely have to get one of those pocket scales

Edited March 5, 2014 by paja

[paja]

Like shows my small experience in this thread (all screwbacks, without nut):

IKOM hallmarked 2 kl. – 34,5g (#23K), 3 kl. – 35,9g (#101K),

no hallmarked 2 kl. – 24,4g (#10K) 3 kl. – 23-26g (#25K,73K).

ZIN never seen a piece with hallmarks,

2 kl. – 24,8-25,6g (#6xx,4K) 3 kl. – 26-27,5g (3K,4K,6K).

I apologize, I do not know how I missed this before, so you have 3 IKOM orders without hallmarks?

I believe that those must be silver and that someone forgot to stamp them by accident or something like that.

Could you perhaps post couple of pictures of those screw-back IKOM orders without hallmarks?

[Georg14]

Good Day.

Yes, all weights are without nuts. Now I have only these IKOMs, all of them with wide nuts:

[paja]

Thanks for photos!

I'll post couple of images of orders with similar numbers that I can find, most of them are from ebay.

First 2nd class IKOM, wide nut, #10371 (yours 10391, probably made the same day )

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OLD-YUGOSLAVIA-NATIONAL-MERIT-II-CLASS-NUMBERED-ORDERS-/171197184594?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27dc25ba52&nma=true&si=XFtS5HQlsIFeEO%252FOLyq7IpEKUZ4%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

This one is also without hallmarks...

http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_03_2014/post-7937-0-19357500-1394036949.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_03_2014/post-7937-0-20014000-1394036957.jpg

Second 2nd class order #12K if I see well has hallmark just a little bit to the right from the roman numeral.

I have pictures of some orders numbered 13, 14, 15, 16 and I have seen 17, 18, 19, 20K with hexagon hallmark...

Unfortunately I can't find images of orders with number between those two of yours so I don't know if 11K were also without hallmark.

Even though some of those screw-back IKOM examples do not have hallmarks I would consider them as silver and it would be a huge surprise for me if they were actually made of tombak or something similar...

Edited March 5, 2014 by paja