Serbia Differences in the Distinguished marksman Medal

[Drugo]

Gentlemen,

I need your help.

We all know the Distinguished marksman medal, it's very common and I think there has never been much of a talking about it. But I just noticed something that caught my attention and I hope you will be able to explain me better: I have two of these medals, and noticed that they have different front and reverse inscriptions.

One has the Serbian cyrillic inscription engraved on the front, and the Latin one on the obverse. The second one is exactly the opposite:

You can be sure that the two medals are just not the same, with the suspender mounted on different sides, because the machine gun and the cannon under the wreath are in the same position on both (the cannon left, the machine gun right). Do you know perhaps if this change occured at some time in the '50s/'60s (I assume it was more politically correct to use Latin characters on the front side in multicultural Federal Yu), or did the two version coexist? Was the manufacturer the same (the rings for suspension slightly differ...)?

Thanks.

Regards,

Drugo

Edited October 21, 2010 by Drugo

[SasaYU]

Drugo,

there was no such thing as "politically correct use of characters" in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In fact, both latin and cyrillic characters were in equal use.

[Anatoly13]

Left medal - IKOM,

right - ZIN.

[Drugo]

Sasa, Anatoly,

thank you both for your help!!

Sasa,

about the use of different characters, unfortunatelly I was born too late to remember anything from the old SFRJ, it was just a personal supposition, being that Serbian supremacy and imposition over other federal countries was one of the favourite points used by Slovenes and Croats just before independece (I'm not looking for a political discussion, I'm just interested in facts). I'm aware that both alphabets were equally in use, but I can understand how the use of one or another could have been seen as a political matter, or used as a pretext. That's why I asked if this could have been the case... But thanks again for clarifying!

Best regards,

Filip

[luger008]

You can see the main difference between IKOM and ZIN here.

[Kev in Deva]

Left medal - IKOM,

right - ZIN.

Can you please tell those of us who are not familiar what the IKOM and ZIN stand for?

Kevin in Deva. :beer:

[Anatoly13]

These are the reduced names of the enterprises of manufacturers.

IKOM - in Zagreb,

ZIN - in Beograd.

[Valter]

These are the reduced names of the enterprises of manufacturers.

IKOM - in Zagreb,

ZIN - in Beograd.

IKOM = industrijska kovnica Orešković Marko (Industrial forgery O.M. - named after partisan commander and national hero)

ZIN = Zavod za izradu novčanica (Institution for manufacture of monetary)

and I completely agree with saša - this change of lettering had no political meaning. For comparison,. main army newspaper "Front" was printed partly in latin, partly in cirilic. The choice of articles which were printed in this or that script was, as i could see, random, but they tried to maintain some "balance" (about half-half).

[Drugo]

Thank you all for your help!! I still have to learn a lot about SFRJ awards...

Regards,

Filip

[Drugo]

Has anybody a case to show for this medal? I've never seen one.

Thanks,

F.

[Valter]

Has anybody a case to show for this medal? I've never seen one.

Thanks,

F.

I've never seen one either. I think the case doesn't exist at all. I've seen only examples in (blank) paper packets, but I'm not sure if these packets were originally designed for these medals. The "generic" Yugo packets can be found with late medals and bravery orders.

[Drugo]

Valter,

we know that all Yu medals, even the most common (military merit, virtues, labour...), were awarded in case. I would be very surprised to know that this was the only one without... That's why I love socialist countries: there are always new things to find out!

I've never seen one either. I think the case doesn't exist at all. I've seen only examples in (blank) paper packets, but I'm not sure if these packets were originally designed for these medals. The "generic" Yugo packets can be found with late medals and bravery orders.

[SasaYU]

I agree with Valter. I also haven't seen case for this medal yet. My opinion is that case does not exist.

[Valter]

Valter,

we know that all Yu medals, even the most common (military merit, virtues, labour...), were awarded in case. I would be very surprised to know that this was the only one without... That's why I love socialist countries: there are always new things to find out!

Agree, Drugo, but this is true only for federal decorations (orders and medals). Marksman's medal was not a state-level decoration (you won't find it in any list of federal Yugoslav decorations), but "priznanje" (achivement sign) on army (not state) level. It is possible that there was some kind of case, especially in early times, but I doubt it, as I never seen or heard about one, and not even mentioned in books and articles (papers). The same is with army anniversary medals - these were not part of federal decoration sistem, and some of them do come in (very rare) cases, but some of them never. I know about cases fot 30 years of victory and 40 years of JNA medals, but the others (10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years of JNA) most likely never had cases.

[Drugo]

Valter,

you are correct. I did not consider the distinction between federal and army awards, thanks for pointing it out.

Lep pozdrav,

Filip