JapanX

Type 4 Meiji late-Taisho early This type is close relative of type 3. Slightly different form of kite.

Type 3 Meiji late-Taisho early Another form of kite.

Type 2 Meiji late Different form of kite.

Type 1 Meiji classical Most numerous type among old pieces. Quite unified one too.

Type 1a Meiji classical Sub variation of type 1. Very old piece. Sorry for the quality of fotos – they are taken from the web). Take a close look at the form of the Kite. Nice old specimen. As old as you can get.

I will avoid discussion of color of enamel, a harness etc. not that they are not present, but because of impossibility of their adequate transfer by the camera. Even shooting on one camera of all signs in the same conditions easily can deform the validity. No use to speak about different conditions and different chambers! After all it is Japanese awards and their "daylight enamels"! As an example I will present two shootings of the extremely interesting type 5. I hope these photos will serve me better than thousand words. I suggest to use for unambiguous definition of a kite type, first of all, its form, and rivets (is a sign quite good certainly, but ambiguous if not to use obverse), enamels, harnesses, tops of halberds, enamel packing on halberds etc. as additional, secondary signs (which from my point of view not always increase accuracy of timing the piece). As I already spoke earlier I do not insist on the complete list of types, but I hope that I managed to reveal the major types. I hope that my classification will help colleagues to look at an old problem of typology of golden kites in a new fashion.

Types 1 to 4 inclusive and type 7 have centered rivets on reverse. Type 5 and type 6 have rivets carried on corners. Rivets heads of types 1-4 less large, than heads of rivets of type 7. The biggest heads (in diameter) can be found on type 5 and type 6. All the rest you will find in following photos.

Classification The classification of golden kites offered hereinafter concerns only with awards in 5 and 4 classes. Classification of awards of 3 class demands a separate theme because of features inherent in these signs. Three columns. Left – a photo of a Kite. Central – my attribution of the piece to specific time period (Meiji –Taisho–Showa). Right – number under which the given type of a kite will be mentioned in the further discussion.

Dear colleagues, allow me to bring to your attention my classification of the Golden Kite order for 4th and 5th class. This classification doesn’t pretend to cover all types, but only the basic ones. Despite this, I hope this classification will cover no less than 80% of all types (a little bit overoptimistic? ). Comments (especially critical) are more than welcomed. So here it comes.