Albania Hero of the People / Hero of Socialist Labor

[Bob]

If anybody could provide pics of these I'd greatly appreciate it!

[gor]

My welcome to new forum

[Bob]

[Eric Schena]

Hi Gor - welcome to the Forum!

That is a great example of a very, very rare decoration. When the title was first established on October 25, 1954, it had a statute fineness of 18 karat gold and a weight of 21.5 grams. In 1970, the fineness of the decoration was set at 20 karats and weight at 18.5 grams. At some point, a gilt bronze version was also issued, though I've not yet been able to figure out when or why the bronze versions began to be manufactured.

Cheers,

Eric

[Belaruski]

Here's an interesting brass hero of socialist labour. Not original, but interesting none the less!

[Ed_Haynes]

Wow! One more thing that I see on this forum that I never expected to see ANYWHERE!

[new world]

Here's an interesting brass hero of socialist labour. Not original, but interesting none the less!

Years ago I had exactly the same copy, but with Soviet HSL red ribbon!

[Ed_Haynes]

Years ago I had exactly the same copy, but with Soviet HSL red ribbon!

Interesting. More than just "interesting"? Are the fakers branching out, learning things we wish they didn't know??

[Belaruski]

Ed, probably as Soviet copies get better the cast offs get converted.

Until eventually (in a year or two) we will see completely fake Orders of Skanderbeg etc. here.

[Eric Schena]

You know, that bronze one almost looks like one of those putative "wearer's copies" of the USSR Hero of Socialist Labor. I wonder if some enterprising fellow took one of those and pieced together this thing as an Albanian one?

[Ed_Haynes]

Is the black stripe inked-on?

[Belaruski]

Is the black stripe inked-on?

Probably! but quite neatly.

[Bob]

As background music in this thread I hear the instrumentals from the Jaws movie... because there's something coming closer and closer but we can't see it just yet... oh the suspense!

[Bob]

Red box

[Bob]

Open red box

[Bob]

Custom fitted box

[Bob]

Dimensions

- ribbon: width of 20.00mm and height (excl ring connector) of appr 14.40mm

- gold star itself has thickness of appr 3.35mm at center and 2.20 at star tip

- gold star has max widt of 17.4 (star tip to star tip)

- total = 17.8gr, star only 13.25gr

Dimensions thus not being fully in alignment with what is currently in Eric's book.

Unfortunately unnumbered/unmarked... although I'll request from source the "story" behind the star and - if possible - will share here.

This is probably the first time that a scan of a real star (i.e. not from book) is made available on internet!

Edited May 12, 2007 by Bob

[Belaruski]

Very nice Bob! I'll not ask what it cost..

[Ed_Haynes]

How could I have missed this post?!?

:envy:

[hunyadi]

Something interesting here - can you give me the dimensions of the box itself?

[Bob]

Something interesting here - can you give me the dimensions of the box itself?

I'll have a look this evening. Few days before this and also some other items will make their way to a more secure environment further away from my scanner

[Bob]

Documented / boxed Hero of Socilist Labor arrived in the mail today

Will post some scans over the weekend. Hopefully then also can get somebody to translate the document which appears to have a section which indicates what the achievement justifying the award (from 1989) specifically was:

Edited August 17, 2007 by Bob

[Bob]

Ov

rview

[Bob]

And more detail - translation pending (awarded for something to do with "10 years...".

[Bob]

Last one of doc...