JapanX

Obverse and reverse

Are these Peterson late WWII Kites? Definitely NO! These badges don’t look like they were made out of rough unpolished metal. Do you really see rough metal dear colleagues? The only thing I see is absence of polishing of silver reverse. Nothing more. Quality of manufacturing of obverses is not lower – it’s exactly the same. The same as quality of pieces with polished reverses. Just take a look at this 5th class “late” kite.

I think you get the general idea. Now the only question – on what ground somebody could call the later ones “late-war-kites”?

Reverses

Obverses

And now some examples of “late” kites. Couple of 4th classes and one 6th class specimens.

Reverses

Obverses

What it’s all about? The main feature of alleged “early” kites is ideally polished reverse. The main feature of alleged “late” kites is sandblasted reverse (this is the main, but not one and only feature). Ok, let’s go visual. Here we have a nice gallery of “early” kites. 5th and 7th class.

Despite of all aforesaid sometimes you can hear term "early-war kites" and "late-war kites" (war, of course, pacific one). What’s is this? On what ground one could place WW II kites into these categories? Let’s look carefully into this issue.

So this is all that we could extract from Peterson's phrase. Whence he had obtained this information is not known. I’ve personally never met poor made kites in metal. But maybe it’s just me and my unlucky experience?

We will begin with a unique source of the information on "poor-quality" kites. I would like to attract attention of my colleagues to a word METAL. Metal instead of habitual high-proof silver. Simple metal which is a) any of a number of chemical elements, such as iron or copper, that are often lustrous ductile solids, have basic oxides, form positive ions, and are good conductors of heat and electricity or b) an alloy, such as brass or steel, containing one or more of these elements That’s why when I hear word “metal” (especially after multiplying this word by 70 years!) I expect to see something that maybe not completely “eaten away with rust”, but have some usual footprints of time (at least!). “Usual” for 70 years old metal pieces. Don’t you?

But this is badges. And we are talking about the orders. And not just orders, but about most prestigious order of them all – golden kite. Does same story with poor-quality late pieces really happen here? Whether really there are the kites executed in rough unpolished metal? Let's try to sort this out.

Of course it is quite natural to assume that when country doesn’t have enough aluminum to build plains it doesn’t have enough silver for the kites. And even more natural will be to assume, that when collapse of empire is round the corner practically everything become poor-quality. We can observe this process by way of example of late-war badges. Here we have an example of two merit badges of Japanese Naval Institute. On the left – classical high-quality piece and on the right late war specimen.

It was written about kites. Probably about kites in all classes (sic!). Another possibility – only about kites in 6th and 7th classes. For a long time this sentence has been bothering me. Why? Because I’ve never seen such rough unpolished metal specimens. Have you?

“A few of the late World War II awards were of rough unpolished metal” (Peterson, p. 19)

Please note how close this pin resembles pins on chained couple of rising suns. As I said, somebody messed with our precious orders quite professionally...

Reverse

Obverse

And now something really interesting. Not only “straight” japanese orders became victims of modernization, but even their Manchukuo compatriots. Please welcome converted 6th class order of auspicious clouds .

Well, what we've got here is a nice and very stylish brooch.

Reverse

First will be this nicely converted 8 class rising sun order. Obverse

Ok. Time to go back to our japanese converted pieces. Thanks to generous photo-support from my friends, we have another opportunity to look at some very interesting conversion variations.

Only your type could be identified more or less precisely. Other most common "green ribbon" class of after-war replicas we couldn't dated precisely. That is if there are no insets inside the box or inscriptions on the medal itself. I thought about making another classification ... :lol: