Yugoslavia Order of the National Hero

[Luka]

Hi All,

sorry to bringing up this old topic, but this ONH is pure gold russian type... and I have no doubt about my opinion.

Regards

Sasha

You are absolutely right .

[bovec1313]

Dear all,

as I'm a new kid on the block, some interesting fact about Order of National Hero (to my knowledge)

The first decorations were finished in September 1944. Until end of WWII orders were manfactured in Moscow workshop Monetnii Dvor. After the war production was taken over by workshop of Brothers Knaus in Zagreb (later mint IKOM). While Russiand made decorations were produced exclusively from gold, IKOM had produced beside gold as well pieces made from gilded bronze for museums or as a duplicates.

Order of the National Hero was bestowed until 1973 and alltogether 1364 decorations were made. Out of this munber, 903 were made posthumly. Orders to the posthumly decorated people were not bestowed to their families or next of kin, but were sent directly to Militay museum in Belgrade; where they're (and still are) hanged on a wall. All these orders were made from gilded tombac (bronze), but they differ from present fakes (originals were manufactured un very fine way).

Russian Orders were made of solid gold, 22 carat (916/1000) and are not hallmarked. (39,1 g)

Ikom orders were made of 18 karat gold (750/1000) and are hallmarked with Yugoslav hallmark for gold. hey are made from two parts (front and rear) which are soldered together.

Visually, they're all very similar.

from left to right : Ruusian gold order, Ikom gold, Ikom gilded bronze

Edited December 22, 2009 by bovec1313

[Luka]

Good expertize, I must notice that "gilded bronze" model isn't very well accepted among collectors... probably the reason is lack of information and proves .

BTW...Welcome to the forum :cheers:

[Bryan]

Indeed very informative. Welcome to the forum Pavel! Do you now how many Russian made Hero orders were awarded?

[bovec1313]

To available data, 476 orders were made in Moscow mint; which is quite high number;

Production in Muscow mint lasted until end of October 1944. As Zagreb was liberated in May 1945,

it seems that there was no need for additional orders. Namely, mint IKOM was located in Zagreb.

IKOM was in fact old and well known workshop of Knauss Brothers (for some time Griesbach & Knauss);

before WW2 they were producing orders in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in yeasr 1941 - 1945 they were main producer

of decorations and badges in Independant State of Croatia (NDH); after the war as side had turned, they started to produced

decorations for Socialistic Yugoslavia. Their products between 1945 - 47 are halmarked with ''BK''. After 1947, company

was nationalised and renamed to ''Industrial Mint (Kovnica in Croat) Orekovic Marko'' or IKOM. Marko Oreskovic was one of early

national heroes.

So, soon after May 45 Knaus Brothers started with Yugoslav production of Order of National Hero.

I agree with Luka that gilded Orders of national hero are not popular between colectors; I would say there are two reasons;

firts, ''live'' awarded person always received solid gold piece. Second, gilded bronze pieces were made almost entirely as museum piecse or 2nd (copy) items for recipients, and almost all fakes on the marked are made from gilded bronze. It's cheaper.

[Sasha]

Hello Pavel, nice to see you here.

Russian type of ONH is litle heavyer than 39,1g... after my study and all collected information is weight between 42 and 44 g.

Here is also comparison between IKOM and Monetnii Dvor, (Collector - that is my nick from Slovenian Forum)

Also here is one photo of my MD on the balance, neck ribbon is not removable:

[Luka]

Russian type of ONH is litle heavyer than 39,1g... after my study and all collected information is weight between 42 and 44 g.

I seen some even weigh more than 45 g(45.5 to be exact) , so there are obviously deviations in the weight.

BTW...Sasha you got yourself a nice mint one :love: :love:

Edited December 26, 2009 by Luka

[Bryan]

Pavel, thank you for your very informatived and detailed post. This was very interesting!

[slava1stclass]

Gents,

A very nice triple HSU/triple ONH image.

Regards,

slava1stclass