How do North Korean awards hit the market?

[charlet]

The book, by the way, addresses the issue of fakes rationally and based on evidence and serious observation.

I can't approve any further! Thanks for this answer.

God, I need this book!

[Esteban_cool]

We must not forget neither that North Korean government in the recent years has sent some of their own population to work for pitiful salaries in Siberia and Vladivostok to start paying the external debt they have with Russia since the cold war. The first NK awards I got were, according to the collector who sold them to me, sent from Vladivostok.

I can PM the source to anyone interested, for I will not post it here to keep the topic on track.

[January]

I liked the suggestion earlier in this thread that the DPRK government is itself deliberately producing a surplus of awards for resale. Given that they've been known to manufacture methamphetamine, US 100-dollar bills, and Scud missiles with the intention of selling them abroad, I can't imagine that they'd hesitate to churn out extras of something that they were already making if they saw profit in it. (They're really hard up for money, as I understand it.) And a crate of awards wouldn't raise the sort of eyebrows or incite other nations nearly as much as, say, a freighter of Scud missiles headed to Syria or a boatload of heroin headed to Australia would (and have).

That said, the really reasonably-priced awards that we've been seeing often appear to have been worn and circulated. I suppose that it could be noted that, if we count active, reserve, and paramilitary, the DPRK has the world's third largest military, larger than even that of the US (if we only count active troops, they're number four, but I would expect that the reserve and paramilitary troops also receive awards, and, judging from the photos that we've seen, they aren't stingy about handing them out). That would make for a lot of awards being issued.

Issued or not, though, I'm inclined to lean towards the DPRK themselves producing the bumper crop of DPRK awards that we've seen. Possibly one of the few things that they can produce that people will actually line up to buy, LOL.

One thing that I have noticed about the eBay awards is that the quality is noticeably lower than that of old, 1950s DPRK awards known to be genuine. This could just be due to a change in the country of manufacture--as I understand it, 1950s awards were made by the Soviets, whereas current awards are produced either within the DPRK itself, or possibly the PRC. I attach an image that shows an eBay Soldier's Honour (left; no date stated by seller) and a known-authentic 1950s Soldier's Honour (right). Again, I'm not saying that the one on the left is fake, only noting that the quality of manufacture seems to have dropped quite a bit. If someone has one of the two DPRK awards books handy (I have neither), they can probably identify whether the one on the left at least looks like the current award does.

[Esteban_cool]

The thing is that not only those DPRK produced awards are being sold at ebay, but quite a considerable number of allegedly soviet/czech pieces are too. These ones are a bit different; they have something that may cause doubt about its provenance and authenticity. Can´t put my finger in it though, but ithey doesn´t look that "soviet-made" to me.

PM me for an ebay example.

[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/soviet-aw...h-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!