Japanese Award Documents

[MJMartin]

Hello to all. I am new to this forum, but have been active on the MCF. My interest is Japanese Award Documents and I have been doing some research on this topic for the last few months. I have posted quite a few pictures and descriptions on the MCF forum. I will not repost them here because of the amount of time they require, but the link is here: http://www.militariacollecting.com/index.php?showtopic=49644.

I invite people to look throw the linked thread. It covers a wide range of topics including Award Document types, description, and how to read them. But, I do have a question that I want to pose for this forum.

The serial numbers (or entry rolls) of Japanese Award Documents most interest me. Please see either my linked thread or the thread by Paul L. Murphy titled "How to read Japanese Award Documents Master Classes" for details about these numbers. My largest question is 'Can we use the serial numbers of these documents and the documents award date to authenticate documents?'

I have been keeping track of documents on eBay and other sources. I have cataloged their dates and serial numbers. There have been some problems with this method though. Mainly the pictures are not very good. I could only catalog about half of all documents that I seen because of the blurry kanji. Some the readings I do get are slightly incomplete. You will notice a "?" in some number spaces. But, I only recorded the documents that I could get a good read from. I have only cataloged the three different orders, but I do have pictures of many more documents, such has the army service documents.

Well, enough talk, here is the facts. The follow lists represents the chronological serial numbering (from early to late) of the three orders.

Order of the Golden Kite

Meiji 15 (1882) 2,7?8

Meiji 37 (1904) 9,504

Meiji 39 (1906) 42,488

Meiji 39 (1906) 45,488

Meiji 39 (1906) 85,91?

Showa 9 (1934) 127,90?

Showa 12 (1937) 136,696

Showa 15 (1940) 506,202

Order of the Sacred Treasure

Meiji 28 (1895) 46,469

Meiji 36 (1903) 91,027

Meiji 36 (1903) 94,302

Meiji 38 (1905) 103,494

Meiji 39 (1906) 126,816

Meiji 39 (1906) 166,6?6

Taisho 2 (1913) 413,067

Taisho 3 (1914) 422,398

Showa 7 (1932) 760,764

Showa 9 (1934) 847,704

Showa 9 (1934) 86?,?89

Showa 13 (1938) 1,704,08?

Showa 15 (1940) 1,???,215

Showa 17 (1942) 1,456,4??

Showa 18 (1943) 2,016,880

Order of the Rising Sun

Meiji 34 (1901) 44,251

Meiji 39 (1906) 269,410

Taisho 4 (1915) 81?,?81

Taisho 8 (1919) 837,496

Taisho 9 (1920) 872,754

Showa 14 (1939) ??8,980

Showa 15 (1940) 1,186,874

Showa 15 (1940) 1,379,870

Showa 15 (1940) 1,521,546

I have seen some documents that don't match this order. This even includes the example from Paul L. Murphy on the "How to read Japanese Award Documents Master Classes" thread. The Golden Kite 2^nd Class Document posted is from Showa 9, or 1934, and is numbered 867,289. This number does not match the evidence I have seen or the record of Golden Kites awarded. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Kite) the Order of the Golden Kite was given out no more than 204,600 by the end of the Manchurian Incident in 1934.

I am not claiming that the document shown by Paul Murphy is a fake, but there may be some questions that need to be answered. I have seen numerous documents with these odd serial numbers on eBay. These are the types of questions that I want to get answered. I believe that there are fakes out there being sold to collectors. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing anyone else's thoughts on the topic.

[MJMartin]

I most immediately apologize to Paul Murphy. I missed the fact that the award was for the Order of the Sacred Treasure 2nd Class, not the Order of the Golden Kite 2nd Class. I hope that he forgives this error. The serial number listed is accurate to the numbers I have. It is a great looking document.

So, with all do respects to Mr. Murphy, I do still think there are erroneous documents around. To help illustrate this I have an example. Sacred Treasure 8th Class, Meiji 15 with a serial number of 552,642. According to the other documents that I have seen this number should be in the millions. The numbering is different has well because it is missing the symbols that represents the "tens". This document was sold on eBay. Sorry that the picture is so small.

[Laurence Strong]

Where is the serial number located on the document?

[MJMartin]

No problem, here it is outlined.

[MJMartin]

This is another example of an Award Document with an odd serial number. This Sacred Treasure 8th Class from Meiji 19 is numbered 169,587. This is number though is way, way too low and once again is missing the symbols for "tens". This document was sold on eBay at the same time as the other one. Once again, sorry for the small and fuzzy picture. I did not buy either one of these. I can not afford to buy every example while still in school. But, downloading their pictures is a start.

[Paul L Murphy]

The last two documents you have shown are Showa era documents, not Meiji. Basically each order is serial numbered in order of award so it is possible to say that a certain award number should fall within a certain date range. I have kept track of every number which I have had in my possession over the past four years and in general they follow correctly, however about 5% of certificates do not follow it.

Also you should note that post war certificates are a different series of serial numbers, ie. they started back at 1 again, and awards to foreigners are also a different series. The class of the award is not important in determining the number.

I am on holidays at the moment but once I am in London I will write a pinned thread with the information that I have to date, hopefully that will answer your questions. On the subject of using these to authenticate docuemnts, fortunately there are no good fake documents being produced (yet !). The quality of the paper is the best way to tell a fake from an original, the fakes are not watermarked and the paper is a lot thicker than it should be.

Regards,

Paul

[MJMartin]

I thank you for the insight. I obviously have a lot to learn yet. I look forward to hearing more of what you have to say.

I have to say that initially I am very pleased. It is nice to collect something like these documents that is so rich in history and detail, while not having to sweat its originality constantly. I used to collect mainly German militaria, but I got hooked on Japanese Documents in the Fall. They are usually affordably and considering the amount of information that you can get from each one (awardees name, rank, highest order received, date, document serial number, along with the information about directors, commandeers, and bureau chiefs on the left hand side, and sometimes much more) they are a collector?s bargain.

It is very regarding. Thank you again for the insight and I look forward to learning more.