JapanX

Honest (within reasonable limits) dealer will describe it as “Grand cross. Modern manufacture. Sash Badge, silver gilt (if so, then I wonder why this piece has two non-gilded “silver” screws), enameled, original (?) suspension ring and sash ribbon. Breast Star, silver gilt, enameled, superimposed central medallion, vertical pin and 2 side hooks on the reverse. In original case of issue” The price for this piece of art will be set around 1300$-1800$. I think your imagination will help you with the case of dishonest dealer

Ok. So where we were? Yes, another 1st class set.

As far as I know NO boxes, NO documents (sounds like a title for another Jos Stelling film ) for both medals ("Greater" and "China Incident") And no persuasive explanation around. Cheers, Nick

Hi Ulsterman here is this thread you mentioned and a nice photos of this medal inside http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/37292-china-incident-commemorative-medal/ As for fakes - are you sure? Because I've never seen these... Maybe you are talking about The Greater East Asia War Medal and not about China Incident Home Front Service Commemorative Medal? There are no fakes of the later one, but a lot of replicas/fakes of the first one. Not to mention "secrets" of the original The Greater East Asia War Medal By the way both medals share "no-box-around" diagnosis. Best regards, Nick

Nick Komiya did some amazing research on this medal and kindly gave me a permission to post it here in this very thread. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shattering a Myth, the China Incident Commemorative Medal by Nick Komiya The China Incident War Medal is the most common Japanese war medal on the market today, but its sister, the China Incident Commemorative Medal intended for acknowledging the contributions of those who did not qualify for the war medal is extremely rare and totally misunderstood, thanks to the book written by James W. Peterson. The medal that originally had the name "China Incident Home Front Service Commemorative Medal" has won notoriety as the medal for Chinese Collaborators! This ridiculous morphing of a medal of a most banal nature into a medal sought for its cloak and dagger image was all because of a single sentence in Petersen's book. He said of the medal, "As this medal is practically unknown in Japan, and almost anyone could be eligible for the war medals, it seems probably that this was intended as a reward for Chinese collaborators". This unscholarly speculation unfortunately caught on and even Japanese collectors came to believe this fantasy. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen a single introduction to this medal that correctly describes its purpose, so it is time to set the record straight. The truth is that this medal was originally to be issued in the millions to those who made contributions on the home front such as financial institutions selling war bonds, to youth organizations, religious organizations, railroad personnel, civil defense, the press, government officials, business men etc, whose collaboration was necessary to achieve total mobilization of Japanese society in the war effort. It was based on the recognition that modern wars could only be won by engaging the support of the entire socio-economic infrastructure. The original cabinet discussion papers dated July 6th, 1942 called it the "China Incident Home Front Service Commemorative Medal", but by the time it finally got released as an edict on 26th September, the name had been shortened to "China Incident Commemorative Medal". Despite the curtailed name, the minutes of the morning conference of September 16th resided by the Emperor himself clearly explains the purpose as a "home front medal", though its name had already been shortened. The idea to create this medal simply came from the realization that there were many home front activities behind the incident that went unacknowledged by the war medal established in 1939, and as the war medal would be awarded to even trivial involvement in the military action, not acknowledging weightier home front efforts seemed increasingly inappropriate. However, expanding the award criteria of the war medal to include home front activities seemed equally insulting to those who won it on the front line. In other words, like the Germans added the war service cross to cover the contributions missed by the Iron Cross, Japan belatedly decided to address those they had been neglecting for the past 3 years. The instigators were against simply calling it the China Incident Commemorative Medal and award it generally to those who contributed, as that would mean the redundancy of awarding it to soldiers twice: the war medal and the commemorative. They wanted to limit the award to noncombatants by stressing the Home Front. Neither would it work to award it automatically to all home front efforts that contributed to achieving the goals of the incident, as military personnel who also engaged in home front activities would have received both medals, while their comrades, spending all that time in the front lines would only qualify for the war medal, as if they had done less. Petersen cites the rarity of this medal in Japan, as a reason to assume that it was mainly given to foreigners, but he was obviously looking in the wrong places, as Japan was the main subject for the medal. However, in instituting the medal there was keen awareness of contributions made by those in other territories such as Korea, Taiwan and Sakhalin, of which Korea was to receive the most number of medals outside Japan followed by Taiwan. Why is it so rare then? That is because by 1942 when this medal was established, turn of events such as the Battle of Midway had made the China Incident somewhat irrelevant to what Japan was then facing. The purpose of national mobilization had shifted from the China Incident and had escalated to a Greater East Asia War. It was not the time to sit on laurels and gloat over past glories when things were now going downhill for Japan. So in 1944, when they instituted the Greater East Asia War medal, the edict for both China Incident Medals were amended at the same time and for the China Incident Commemorative Medal this amendment excluded awards to the following two groups. 1. Those who had been awarded the China Incident War Medal 2. Those who made significant contributions to the China Incident since April 29th 1940 and who qualify for the Greater East Asia War Medal. The Greater East Asia War Medal had expanded its award threshold in a way that could award home front activities that took place from where the China Incident Commemorative Medal left off. As a result, the long list of candidates nominated for the commemorative medal at its inception was drastically reduced and the remainder who were to receive the Greater East Asia War medal were made to wait in vain, as Japan had lost the war before it could be issued. The end

How many of these "miscellaneous drawers" do you actually have? ... Personally I've never seen the box, or heard about it. Chances are pretty high that there was no box at all... Peterson couldn't be more wrong when he wrote "...medal is practically unknown in Japan" and "it seems probably that this was intended as a reward for Chinese collaborators". Both statements are false.

Sorry, technical difficulties (my stationary computer is dead ) This thread will be continued tomorrow evening ;)

Nobody seems to know for sure what N stands for. One of the hypothesis states that N stand for “Nakata of Tokyo”. Anyway pieces that bear that mark N have the highest quality of them all. So far I met only 1st class badges marked with N. And another example of 1st class.

Different angles of the box

Very nicely made box

Reverse of the breast star

Obverse of the breast star

Reverse of the 1st class badge

Obverse of the 1st class badge

In this thread replica will be defined as any piece that bears warning inscription. Replicas without such inscriptions are fakes. But most golden kite replicas warnings are written in Japanese, so they don’t help you very much unless you know their true meaning. Even some dealers refer to them as “two japanese hieroglyphs on reverse”. Let’s start with the 1st class replicas. Here comes a nice example of such replica. So to speak “quality standard” for golden kite replicas. Badge bears mark N and warning inscription, the star bears only warning inscription.

Original

Yep. This is the same "manufacturer". Strange choice of orders though. They even used the same base star for both orders Thank you for showing! And here we have original International Merit Order breast star (another name for this prototype ) All original breast stars have all rays in brilliant cut.

What a nice pair of rare orders! And in great condition! Thanks for posting them! Best regards, Nick

Very interesting photos! Many thanks for making and posting them Kapten! Cheers, Nick

Sure these boxes are not perfect (lacquering and hardware + often wrong dimensions). And we should be thankful for that But if we compare box quality with usual replicas/fakes quality - they are indeed "high-quality" pieces. Under what title (replica/original) they are sold - it's a question of dealer honesty. For what and as what (replica/original) collector will buy them - it's a question of he's/she's expertise. Regards, Nick

This guy certainly traveled a lot! Nice collection of colonial french orders. Very interesting photo! Thanks Markus! Looks like his lions are lying. Cheers, Nick

Just wait a little bit and I will post (tomorrow? ) another thread completely devoted to replicas/fakes of Golden Kite order. Nice high-quality boxes again... Even for 1st class kites! It's seems that boxes are no longer a problem... Cheers mates and thanks for reading Nick

Hi Welshdoc! Could you please post the reverse of this piece? Cheers, Nick P.S. 922F forgot to mention another nice reference http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/35604-religious-grand-officer-set/

Encourage their own economies... Maybe, but most likely its just another example of a cut in expenditure ... I hate when they do it...

Thanks. Indeed grand officer set looks like it has cold enamel and made in white metal. Not typical quality for Cejalvo's pieces. But then again... Modern pieces could have inferior quality... Cheers, Nick