Yugoslavia - Order of National Merit

[Wat05]

Here is my III Class Order of National Merit. I believe this is a late version. The number is sadly hidden by the hook, which seems to be very common in Yugoslavian Orders like this one. It appears to be 129383. Ikom Zagreb hallmark on the Order itself, but Zin-Kovnica on the pin. 
 

 

[El Ninja]

It is a strange mix. I have not seen one like this before, and I have seen a lot of those orders.

Usually, late type has a horizontal double needle. 

This one appears to have been polished, having the gilding on the star removed, and then the figure of the fighter has been gilded. 

IKOM may have been the original producer, but ZIN has done the majority, if not all of the subsequent modifications on all of the orders that originally had the screw.

[Wat05]

It is quite an odd order then. I will have a look and see if I can find similar orders. 

[El Ninja]

I went through the literature, turns out, there are several types of this sort of thing.

Yours is the older type of this sort of adaptation. Later ones do not have the hallmarks, the class designation or numbers.

Generally, after the 1961 reform of the decorations, and use of the descriptive system, these were being reworked. Because it was named "Order for the merit to the people with silver star" the gilding from the stars was removed, and applied to the figure instead. 

Sorry for the photo "quality", but it is some glossy paper.

[Wat05]

Awesome, thank you for sharing the information! 

[eatmeat]

This is a very common thing, that an order on screw was remade into needle. Usually IKOM screw type is remade into needle version, and it was done by both IKOM and ZIN, so you can get a mixture of different producers.

There are also a lot of variants where old III. class was issued as a new II. class, and variants where old III. class was remade into new I. class.