I may take some more photographs over the weekend to help you make a decision.
I remember reading online once that the total number of ALL DPRK awards issued during its entire history up to the late 2000's was only in the thousands. It is certainly in the millions.
More items on the market every day - and they are still producing.
For some time I have been recalling the stories that were floating around in the 1970's to the effect that the East German government had put the old Bevo embroidery machines back into action, and had located a number of the older workers of the Third Reich uniform shops, and were turning out nearly exact copies of Third Reich material which was then being sold in the west to obtain hard currency for the East German state.
Then it occurred to me that it would probably be much easier for the DPRK to crank out counterfeit US currency, as it has been doing rather, than trying to find a market for their Orders and Medals. :D
Number 4 has joined the collection. A drastically lower price than these were selling for 4 or so years ago even though they aren't as common a sight as Orders Of Kim Il-Sung. Korean produced awards have continued to tumble in price (as someone predicted). All four are cased and two of them have the ribbon bar.
I realize that I am late to the party, but I have a question about the ribbon bar. Why does the ribbon bar have three stripes down its center when the ribbon on the award does not have them?
It is one of those Korean mysteries.
It is identical (or almost) to the National Flag 3rd Class ribbon, so it may be a case of that these were close to hand rather than creating another bar for these Medals that were to be awarded to Koreans in Japan. The have the national flag colours and 3 stripes - could be argued that they are for the 3 Revolutions. Not all ribbon bars line up directly with the suspending ribbons, just usually.
The two ribboned examples came directly from Japan and the two without the bar came from "outside Japan".
I don't think the Japanese sourced ones were "made complete" to add to the price as they certainly didn't add a premium.
Lots of unanswered questions when it comes to Korea though - even if they're asked a direct question.
"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one but still they come". Here is #5.
