This article addresses the challenging aspects of the study of the cultural and historical heritage of the USSR. It focuses on the development of the art industry in the post-war decades, particularly the pressing issue of attributing mass-produced objects from Soviet enterprises. The particularities of the operations of art-industrial factories are exemplified by the Russkiye Samotsvety Sverdlovsk Factory, the preeminent art enterprise of the Urals and, during the period under consideration, the most substantial stone-carving factory of the USSR. The article reveals the main problems in the attribution of mass-produced pieces based on a study of documents preserved in the State Archive of Sverdlovsk Region and artworks from museum collections. It is therefore evident that the issue of dating objects stored in museum collections represents a significant challenge. The models approved for production could have been manufactured by the factory over a period of several years, with the possibility of subsequent re-approval. This complexity makes it challenging to accurately determine the age of the products, yet it allows for a significant degree of limitation. The article dedicates a significant portion of its discussion to the issue of authorship in art, particularly in the context of stone carving. It highlights the tendency for catalogue entries to attribute artworks to the author of a sketch or model, without explicitly acknowledging the direct performer of the object in the material. This aspect is crucial in understanding the intricacies of gemstone carving as an artistic practice. Particular attention is devoted to the specifics of the interaction between the Russkiye Samotsvety Sverdlovsk Factory and higher authorities. The analysis demonstrates that the shift in the enterprise’s subordination in the mid-1960s had a considerable impact on the subsequent evolution of the factory’s stone carving activities, both in terms of bureaucratic management and, more significantly, in the artistic domain. The case studies, which were constructed in a format that allowed us to consider individual examples for each of the noted problems, demonstrated, on the one hand, the complexity of production processes and, on the other hand, the possibilities available today for significantly clarifying the information in museum catalogues. Furthermore, the study highlighted the imperative to reconstruct the history of a major art enterprise in the Ural Region, which has hitherto been described only in general terms through the lens of the achievements of the implementation of the Soviet five-year plans.