How do North Korean awards hit the market?

[medals73]

Originally Posted by Esteban_cool

The awarding criteria for this order is so broad that you can get it for anyting, and I mean anything, from courage shown in the face of the imperialist enemy to outstanding work quotas (let´s say, 2-3 pounds a week given the actual situation:weird) in extracting turnips.

True. Producing turnips is fighting the imperialist enemies.

:D

The real question remains (as given in the topic here): How do they get out? Answering that may require more knowledge of the DPRK than any of us will ever have.

[charlet]

Originally Posted by medals73

But how common is the Order of the Flagf? If you look in the Sessler & McDaniel book, you see numerous pictures of people (and not just senior generals) with multiple-multiple OoFs, essentially plate-armored in OoFs.

I take your point, but it seems to be given out very freely (for such a senior order).

Ed, what does state the Sessler about these ugly and common vertical pinback variations? Are they in the book as crude as they are sold in ebay for 5 or 7usd? Are they really specified as widespread?

[medals73]

Most awards have a variety with the vertical pin (and many have a horizontal pin variety too) in addition to the Soviet-style and Soviet-manufactured screwback. The Order of the National Flag, for example, is given in 9 types and multiple sub-varieties (see below). While this classification may be a bit excessive and/or compulsive, it indicates the substantial variation in manufacture. Their discussion of the 3rd class OoF, just that class of that order, takes up 30 pages in the book. By Comparison, Cabral gives this order in all classes just 4 pages and Boik gives 6 pages to the OoF in all classes.

And we must be careful not to overestimate awards to Chinese for the war. While reliable numbers are predictably elusive, they show the Order of Soldier's Honor, 2nd class, as having been awarded 112,170 times to Koreans and 6,349 times to Chinese and estimate wartime OoF 3rd awards at 51,527 to Koreans and 22,509 to Chinese.

I know that (some) Soviet collectors like to discern fakes everywhere (and they may be there) but (at least before this book) has there really been enough interest in Korean awards and have they carried so much market value that faking them would be repaid? They tend to be either very very common or very very obscure. Faking the hero stars is one thing (and I have no dpubt that has been done), but faking an OoF 3rd class?! The book, by the way, addresses the issue of fakes rationally and based on evidence and serious observation.

Sessler and McDaniel borrow the rarity codes from the Red Bible and most things seem to be toward either extreme. Just to take as an example the OoF 3rd class:

Neck star - 5

Screwback:
T1 - 5
T2 - 2
T3 V1 - 3
T3 V2 - 2
T3 V3 - 2
T3 V4 - 5

Horizontal pin:
T4 V1 - 2
T4 V2 - 2
T4 V3 - 2
T4 V4 - 2
T4 V5 - 2

Vertical pin:
T5 V1 - 3
T5 V2 - 3
T5 V3 - 2
T5 V4 - 2
T5 V5 - 2
T6 V1 - 2
T6 V2 - 2
T6 V3 - 1
T6 V4 - 1
T6 V5 - 1
T6 V6 - 1
T6 V7 - 1
T6 V8 - 1
T7 V1 - 1
T7 V2 - 1
T7 V3 - 1
T8 V1 - 1
T8 V2 - 1
T9 V1 - 1

They estimate 990,000 numbered OoF 3rd class awards and they cannot guess at the number of unnumbered badges. For reference, the 2009 DPRK population is estimated at 23,906,000.

[Will]

There is a fascinating book that was published a few years ago called "This Is Paradise". It was written by a young man who, with his family, escaped from North Korea. He wrote of the fact that, at one point, his father was able to sneak out of the country to China, where he worked for some time to make money. He then returned to the DPRK. He also wrote of the smuggling of antiquities that took place.

He wrote that, when he and his family left the country, they were spotted by armed DPRK Border Guards. However, the guards just called to them to come back and did not shoot at them. Well, apparently some months earlier the guards had shot at some North Koreans who were escaping across the border to China. They missed the Koreans and accidentally shot a Chinese citizen on the other side. That caused such a row with China that the DPRK supposedly took away the ammunition from the border guards. The author had heard this and, when the guards did not shoot at him or his family as they crossed a river, he concluded that the story was true.

[edwil777]

Hi all,recently i have been browsing the fourms of the DPRK, and i have been fascinated by the awards the country has given out and how they have changed as the country has gotten poorer, but one thing has been bugging me,where do you buy dprk awards from? The only place i know that has them is ebay no matter how many times i look i still can't find any where that sells them. Knowing me i am probably missing something obvious, any help would be appreciated.


Cheers
Will

[CtahhR]

It's all pretty much covered here - http://soviet-awards.com/forum/sovie...-much-pay.html

You have to do some real probing in China and you'll find a seemingly never-ending source.
As you've seen by the ocean of them I have posted (and I have only posted a small percentage of the DPRK items in my collection) they are certainly not as rare as some would have you believe. Most items sell for under $5 and it is pretty mad to pay more than $100 for almost anything. The fact that these items are from an active regime does mean that there is a little cloak and dagger operating when it comes to supply. Believe me there are so many of these stacked up in warehouses in China that you would need shipping containers to ferry them to the western markets. Even with the attempted monopolising of the market, the value of the items is low and falling. Just imagine how little these would cost if the market was transparent.

It got to the point that so many of these were coming in that I didn't even look at the items, just added them to the pile.

Beware of the middlemen and there are also a selection of fakes out there but I've said all of this before.

I do have some more interesting awards from the DPRK I've not yet posted that I'll get round to some time.

Good luck!