Dieter3

It certainly would make sense for higher class awards to come in nicer cases, I can see that. Unfortunately, so few (relatively speaking) cased documents come up, let alone higher class documents, it is really hard to say. Are those Showa documents earlier or later ones?

I certainly hope so!! Yeah, the "they survived this long" reasoning just doesn't work for me. In the grand scheme of things, these are not old objects at all and really could be in vastly better condition than many of them are. They have not survived very long at all. Give them a few hundred years, then we'll talk! Dirty, crappy items are that way for a reason - poor handling and storage. Why further contribute? Why can't these things be made to last hundreds of more years? Well, I guess time will tell us if the materials are inherently self-destructive or not, but we know the human factor is destructive yet we can't eliminate it from the formula so preventative intervention is needed.

I've also heard the "I won't be around long enough for it to matter anyway" line. Yeah, but so what? Hey, each to their own, who am I to criticize? My goal just happens to be a different one.

Found one of these too. I've seen 3 specimens over the past year, been able to examine two including this one that I scored. I'm actually uncertain as to whether these are raw silk, or even wool. What ever the material, definitely not like the typical watered silk ribbons. The clasp is interesting too, though I neglected to photograph and post here. Indeed, the cases are of black lacquered wood. The insert on this was easy to remove, and revealed a number on the bottom of the case. Cardboard box an extra plus IMHO, but this one also came with a small insert (pictured folded on the box top) - similar to the chronological summary documents that can be found with the more common variants, but this one actually has the company name and address on it! If I've got my research straight, these were made sometime between 1967 and 1987. The document suggests these were indeed made for veterans, but doesn't appear that these were given, rather made available for purchase. (This company still exists, but not as the company that made the medal, it was "absorbed" into part of what is now "Seiyu Retail Support Co.".) These are much heavier and solid than the ones in the plastic cases. This one is in very good condition save some light wear to the exterior and some foxing to the interior of the cardboard box, very light wear to the lacquer case, and a tiny stain on the front of the ribbon. Light wear and tarnish to the medallion. Overall a nice example me thinks.

Ha! Somebody that doesn't think I am an extreme nut!

I don't handle any of my documents or medals with bare hands, always gloves. (I forgot to mention - that white thing under the document box is actually a chemically resistant, ceramic coated pyrex "thing" (for lack of a better term). Super easy to keep clean, works great for backing the documents when I'm working with them. Got it from work, it was being discarded, so a light bulb went off in my little noggin. Point being, it's easy to stow since it is fairly thin and tops our coffee table perfectly, and being so easy to clean, I don't worry about transferring and crap to the documents if they're out of the sleeves.)

I can in no way afford actual restoration of these documents, but at least I can hopefully mitigate further significant damage and degradation. It's a bit of an investment, but well worth it to me.

I've got a special member's medal/rosette, both with the matching "井" kanji. Others that I have seen, though I do not have myself, are the "ス" hallmarks on both medals and rosettes - so I'm guessing there's a likelihood that these would typically be matched too. It makes sense a medal and rosette would have matching hallmarks. But then again, maybe just coincidence? All part of the mystery that makes the collecting that much more enjoyable! :lol:

Yeah, most people seem to go the baking soda route from my limited reading on stench removal. I started with that and might go back to it depending on how the activated carbon does. I think the carbon might be a bit more effective, and I had ready access to it, so I figured what the heck! I'll post back later on the efficacy of either/or.....

Here it is, see what I mean by the pinkish hue? Anyway, I was happy to find one in good shape with the cardboard box and rosette.

Just got this recently, in fair condition. Victim of a smoker - thing stinks of tobacco through and through. Oh well, I guess people don't really think about these things. I've got it in a small, sealed container with finely powdered activated carbon - it does seem to be reducing the odor slowly. Unfortunately, there is some light staining from the tobacco residue. I've been able to clean it up a bit, looks better than it did.

A men's Red Cross Life Member medal with the very common "井" hallmark, but nonetheless a nicely stamped one (kinda cool inside the circle) with the matched hallmark on the lapel rosette:

I will PM or email you the details. :D

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say Meiji and Taisho order documents were "boxed" and Showa documents were "tubed". I have some low orders Meiji and Taisho in wooden cases, and by observation of sales, this seems to be the case (no pun intended). I also have some early docs. in tubes, and that in my opinion is just wrong - a seller simply putting a doc. in a tube to attempt a higher price. A few Showa documents I have are indeed tubed, but I have no examples of late Taisho or early Showa to pinpoint a date. But again, observations of sales indicate Showa docs. are tubed, I've not seen any in cases, BUT I certainly wouldn't say they don't exist, perhaps for the higher class awards???

This isn't the best photo for showing this, but wanted to share what I do with my documents. As any of you document collectors know, these babies are almost always rolled up. And as you know, this makes them hard to handle for viewing and research, and it's pretty easy to add to their less than perfect state with unrolling and rolling improperly.

As you've undoubtedly seen in many an auction, a number of devices are employed to hold these down for photographing. I've found two objects to work well for this that won't cause any damage to the documents - sewing weights (there is a variety of plastic coated weight with a felt bottom), and diving weights; not the solid ones, rather the type that have shot inside a nylon pillow. But this is a pain in the butt if you need to repeatedly refer to any one document. I'm also the type that insists on wearing gloves to handle any of these objects whether they be medals or documents - cotton is nice if you need to handle the items but need to de-glove often, but they can dirty quickly. Nitrile gloves are my next choice, but these are not convenient, not to mention costly if you need to constantly de-glove. Yeah, maybe I'm over the top. If your hands are clean and dry, that's probably just fine too.

I decided my documents needed to be easier to handle, and then stored properly with the goal of preservation in mind. Easier to handle first meant they needed to be flat. I connected with a paper conservator and delivered a batch of documents that were humidified then pressed under weight for nearly 4 weeks. Yep. They are pretty flat now! The really stubborn ones still have hints of lift, but no need to unroll and weight down.

The actual storage -

Each document gets its own (slightly oversized) archival polyester sleeve with "L" seam - two sides sealed - makes for inserting the documents much easier (IMHO) than a "U" seam. The documents are fairly dirty, after all, they ain't young. A gentle rubbing down with a wallpaper sponge removes a lot of surface crud (gentle now!) For documents of Orders, the imperial stamp is either inherently unstable ink, or destabilizes with time to some degree - you can actually rub some of it off! (obviously avoid this are with the sponge!) So, to prevent static from the polyester from pulling this ink, a sheet of glassine is placed between the upper surface and the polyester. The documents are still nicely legible even though the glassine is semi-opaque. The other inks appear to be stable, so I didn't use glassine on them. I need to do some measuring to get it cut, but the last step will be to back all of these with buffered interleaving paper to help draw of any damaging acids that may still be present in or on the paper.

All of the sleeves are then stored in an archival drop-front box (lid not shown, but obviously have one!) Sure makes pulling the sleeves out a lot easier than having to lift them out. This particular box has a thin layer of carbon and zeolyte embedded in the struture that will help absorb other potential airborne pollutants. Obviously, the box storage protects from large particulates to some degree and UV/Light damage. The polyester sleeves make manipulation easy, offers good protection from bending and contact damage. They do not make for good photography though as they are very glossy (you can see a smaller document at the top reflecting light) Unfortunately, I'm somewhat at the mercy of temperature and humidity, but God knows these have seen their share of cycling throughout their lives, so not sure if it's a real issue save for any extremes that I can likely avoid. I'm hoping my efforts will give many decades of life to these documents with a minimum of degradation.

Over the top? Crazy? Perhaps, you can decide. But what the hell? You only live once, and these documents are all one of a kind, despite the majority of them not really costing a lot of money. I feel they are all worth preserving for future generations to enjoy.

If any of you are interested, I'm more than happy to share details on costs, vendors, etc. The people I've dealt with to procure the materials, and the conservator were all fantastic to work with.

So, with regards to the commemorative medal, what he heck color is the ribbon? All that I've seen in pictures look white. I got one today and the ribbon has a pinkish hue to it. Doesn't look stained, it is totally uniform throughout the "white" band, the other colors look normal. The pinkish seems kinda weird though, or is this normal? (I'll get around to pics. eventually....)

Nice man!!! Sure wish I could have gone, but simply not in the cards. Congrats on the sweet pieces!!

I've got one of these with the "M" as well - wonder if they were all marked in this way?

$50-60 is a ridiculously low price - especially if it is a numbers-matched rifle, including that dust cover! Hell, just the monopods by themselves will cost you that much. If the rifle is all authentic, and untouched that is a helluva deal. It'd still be a great price even if it wasn't matched as the parts have a significant individual value, well over $50-60!

You can get 7.7mm factory new rounds from Graf & Sons:

http://www.grafs.com/ammo/239

Not the cheapest stuff in the world at a buck a round, but the PCI stuff ain't too bad shootin' and shipping is free from Graf. The Hornady and Norma are very good, but Norma is over-priced for everyday shooting.

Here's a neat pic. of a Red Cross worker - I can't tell what she's wearing under the Scared Crown, maybe Sino-Japanese war medal or some commemorative? Cool though, looks like she's got a Boxer Rebellion and a Russo-Japan War medal in addition to her Red Cross Special Membership medal. I really like seeing pictures of people actually wearing the medals!

So, did anybody here end up with this piece?

There were actually two of these, the other sold for even more!

Thank you for the replies everyone!

Yep! Nicest Boxer I've ever seen for sale was purchased at auction, the case lid was taken, and then the medal with only the bottom was put back up for auction. Somebody must have had a DAMN nice Boxer that they needed a lid for or else that was a seriously dumb maneuver. Apparently, a lid is worth $100.00 or more as the gent lost about that much selling it than what he paid for it.

Sweet man! Yeah, it's typical - you find a nice medal, no case. A nice case, trashed medal, trashed everything, very seldom a nice combo of the two! And too many Boxers seem to be missing their lids for whatever reason (?). I've seen plenty of either though, some very nice ones, but in groups of medals that I simply can't afford or don't otherwise want. Oh well! Patience, one of these days.....

Not me either. I'm holding off on orders for the moment and focusing my $$$ on trying to nail down a really nice Boxer Rebellion or Nomonhan Border Incident medal. Haven't been too impressed with what has come up recently. Yeah, cheaper, but I'd rather pay higher price and get something really nice. (Might be holding out for a while!)

Yeah, this one went for about ¥45,000 or so!

What exactly is this? I couldn't get a feel for the size, is this a mini-medal?