JapanX

1874 medal, 1895 medal, Taisho enthronement (!), Legion of Honor (!), 25 wedding, Constitution medal. This is one strange order ;)

Can you believe it?! :lol:

Now the most famous photo

Now something really interesting (I bet Rich will like this ) Later photo. Here we see French Legion of Honor Order (on first place!), then 1874 medal and 25th wedding medal.

Engraving made after this photo

Time to take a close look at chests decorated with these beaties Japanese Admiral and Count Kabayama Sukenori (1837-1922) He was the very first Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan.

Well, the photo of the 3rd class with affixed leaf could be found in Peterson (3rd edition) at page 25. That`s about it folks Cheers, Nick

Two amazing photo compilations

Later he bacame "too big" for such trinkets

I was able to find this early photo of our cavalier with this order (well, actucally only the tip of the star is visible )

I blame diamonds Very interesting and beatiful lion! Cheers, Nick P.S. Can`t see the reverse picture ;)

Close up (exact reproduction )

Doc

Breast star

Point of fixation

Badge close up

Sash close up

Set

1st of 1st Thanks to our colleague Pieter ( ) we have an opportunity to examine very first (or one of the very first) 1st class Order of the Rising Sun awarded to Prince Arisugawa in 1875. The award certificate has number 1 Photos came from catalogue of exhibition of the Arisugawa family treasures that was held in Tokyo.

Why it was replaced by clevis mounting? Actually the correct question will be “why there was no clevis mounting in the first place”? It is obvious that the creators of first Japanese order were familiar with French Legion of Honour. I don’t know why they didn’t used time-tested clevis mounting construction from the very beginning. Instead they used direct fixation and (I guess) pretty soon the troubles kicked in. Silver is a soft material. Especially high-standard silver that was used in production of Japanese Orders. I wonder if suns started to pill off from leafs or bend under unsanctioned angles … Not to mention the poor cavaliers of 3rd class… Ok, enough of this small talk – let’s go straight to the treasure!

Another thing that we know for sure is that Hirato workshop had enough time to produce a lot (“a lot” in comparison to orders with affixed leaf) of orders with clevis mounting. A couple of examples can be found here http://gmic.co.uk/in...irato-workshop/ So, for how long? I don’t have an exact answer, but definitely for a very short period of time (and very few pieces were made). Most likely time frame is 1875-1880 or even less.

Kite :rolleyes:

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