Paul L Murphy

I have it, I got my copy when I was still in Moscow. It shows the obverse of each badge and gives a short history of each school. All in Russian but pretty useful with a dictionary and patience.

The top right kanji can be used in conjunction with other characters to make a name so I suspect it is an abbreviation for the manufacturer. The centre bottom character is the Japanese number 3. This might signify that the shell was made in the 3rd year of Showa whic corresponds to 1928. Normally when numbers are used to signify dates they have a character in front of them to help identify the era in question, this is not present here so I am not sure if 3 does signify that or if it signifies the mobel/type of shell.

I believe the asking price for these is now in the region of $3,000 for those awarded to the Shropshire Light Infantry (the most common award) and even more for other units.

I can help some. I will give defintions of the words that I know from the first line (on the left) from top to bottom.

Symbols 1 & 2 - ?

Symbols 3-6 - A Rank of Full General

Symbols 7-9 -Order of the 2nd Degree (Either Rising Sun, Sacred Treasure, or Golden Kite)

Symbols 10-12 - Order of the 2nd Degree (Either Rising Sun, Sacred Treasure, or Golden Kite)

Symbols 13-15 - Order of the 1st Degree (Either Rising Sun, Sacred Treasure, or Golden Kite)

The last seven symbols probably include a name. Whomever it is, this guy was important, and someone is bound to know of him. Full generals usually leave a trail! Great picture.

You are almost correct. It says "Marshal Army Full General Junior Second Rank (this was in the nobility hierarchy) Holder of the Second Degree of Merit (either Rising Sun or Sacred Treasure) Holder of the 1st Degree of Bravery (Golden Kite) Kawamura ??'s writing". The ?? is for his first name which I cannot make out, if I was not up to my eyes in work I would dig it out since there are only 42 people with the Golden Kite 1st class, and only 31 Marshals. The last character is the character for writing so it means he is responsible for the inscription, it is not his grave.

In case anyone is wondering why it says both Marshal and Full General, this is because Marshal was not a rank in Japan, it was an honorary appointment.

I only have the shield version of the Silver Merit Cross since they stopped giving out the other awards some time ago. Unfortuantely I do not have a photo since it is on the wall in my parents home in Dublin. I will try to get a photo and post it when I am back next time.

Both of these documents are genuine. The top document is from a patriotic organisation, not the government. It has been awarded for participation in the Russo Japanese War but is an unofficial award. There are many different organisations from that time which handed out badges and certificates to their members.

The bottom certificate is an offical government award. You do find Sacred Treasure awards like this and normally, irrespecitve of which medal is awarded, you will find reference to the campaign. You also find these certificates without any medal and only an award of money for merit.

To be honest, having read some of your posts on this and other forums I think you worry about fake documents too much ! I have not yet come across any convincing fakes of Japanese award documents, although it is probably only a matter of time before some of the higher end stuff starts to be faked.

Thanks guys, I shall grab a copy asap.

There's actually a good book out there about this entitled "Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia" by Richard Stites and published by the Indiana University Press. It has an entire chapter about the Frontline Concert Brigade.

Dave

Any idea where I can get a copy ?

Larry,

In my view the certificate and medal have no connection with each other.

Cheers,

Paul

That is not a Red Cross award document. It is a certificate of appreciation for merit connected with the Sino Japanese War of 1894-95.

It is a fake. I saw plenty of these for sale at Ismailovski Market in Moscow at about $1 a pop. The reliable dealers were selling them as copies. The originals for some of the provincial schools are scarce so I presume they have the fakes as space fillers. Personally I wouldn't touch them, the difference in quality with the originals is tremendous.

It says "December Showa Year 18". Showa 18 is 1943.

Regards,

Paul

So they will award you a medal if somebody shoots at you in the line of duty. I thought that was the whole idea of being in the military, every now and then you may find yourself in the line of fire.

Next they will have a medal for those who do not get shot at in the line of duty, just so they do not feel left out !

VERY rare ! This is the first time I have seen a citation to this unit, others I have seen were to Vietnamese in non-commando units. How much is the asking price ?

Larry,

That sacred treasure 4th class looks familiar. Kobayashi ended up as a Vice Admiral if my memory is correct (my books are en route from Moscow). The number on the certificate is 103,494.

The Rising Sun 8th Class was awarded on 1st April Meiji 39 (1906). This was the date for the mass of awards that were handed out for service in the Russo Japanese War.

Cheers,

Paul

Bad news Ed, this is the case for the China Incident War Medal.

The case from Nomohan is either red or yellow (I cannot remember which and all my notes are in transit at the moment).

Regards,

Paul

One way of telling the difference in "eras" is by comparing the shapes of the kites' heads?

Ralph,

Have a look at the pinned thread in this section of the forum and it will explain the way to date them. The shape of the head is one of the more diffiucult ways, the wings and number of holes in the sword belt are much easier.

Regards,

Paul

?10 !

I feel ill

It is dated 1935 and is most likely a prize medal for a corporate event.

Hi Laurence,

The last one you posted is a Meiji period award. I much prefer these over the Showa pieces since most of the Showa awards were to KIAs in WWII rather than for actual combat bravery. The Golden Kite was devalued a lot after about 1941, partly because they handed it out to about 30% of all combat casualties and partly because they changed the pension entitlement of recipients into a once off payment (which was made in war bonds).

Paul

No.2 is the Taisho Enthronement Medal (Japan) and no. 3 is the Enthronement Commemorative Medal (Manchuko).

The bar is shown upside down. That would also make a foreign award (Italian Crown Order?) more plausible as the last of the three.

/Mike

That would be my view of it as well. An unusual combination of awards and it would suggest that it was to a native Manchurian rather than a Japanese, since otherwise the Taisho Enthronement would have been first.

Yummy

I have never come across fakes of these so I would say it is a goodie. Japanese miniatures are very scarce since they did not have a tradition of wearing them, hence the only people who ever bothered with them tended to be diplomats or officials who worked outside of Japan and needed them to conform to Western court norms.

The last two documents you have shown are Showa era documents, not Meiji. Basically each order is serial numbered in order of award so it is possible to say that a certain award number should fall within a certain date range. I have kept track of every number which I have had in my possession over the past four years and in general they follow correctly, however about 5% of certificates do not follow it.

Also you should note that post war certificates are a different series of serial numbers, ie. they started back at 1 again, and awards to foreigners are also a different series. The class of the award is not important in determining the number.

I am on holidays at the moment but once I am in London I will write a pinned thread with the information that I have to date, hopefully that will answer your questions. On the subject of using these to authenticate docuemnts, fortunately there are no good fake documents being produced (yet !). The quality of the paper is the best way to tell a fake from an original, the fakes are not watermarked and the paper is a lot thicker than it should be.

Regards,

Paul

There is no one reference book that covers all of these. Symboles & Traditions (a french collectors society) have published a number of books covering diffferent badges for the various arms of service but many are now out of print (and about EUR50 a pop for those still available). TDSC are the Montagnard units, in this case it is the 5th Montagnard Infantry Regiment. The last badge you show is for an infantry officer (maybe NCO since I do not have my books with me) school in Indochina.

There are literally thousands of different French unit badges out there. The main makers from the Indochina period are Drago and Arthus Bertrand but Augis was also active at this time as well. For Drago badges the address on the back helps to date the badge and this can have a huge effect on the value, especially for some of the French para units that had a nasty habit of getting wiped out. It is a huge collecting field but you will need to spend about EUR500 or so on good French language reference material if you are going to do it seriously.

If not, post what you have here and I will have a look through my books and let you know what they are.

Cheers,

Paul

Thanks Paul. I know you would have some sort of answer, but are you saying that there were pins of this sort during the war?

No, wartime pins have a totally different design, even when they feature planes.