Nakata Catalog

[Tim B]

Thought I would post this bit of information as the subject came up over on another forum.

A member had recently posted what appears to be a nice, cased, mint condition Golden Kite, 6th Class (pictured below) and another member asked the question if it could be a copy from this guy: http://www.nakatasho.../indexmenu.html Search for the Japanese WWII copies and go to page 10. I tried to post the page here, but the forum limitations would not accept all the images.

First time I seen the catalog. PIC's are too small to see any details, but scary if you ask me. For the price, you can get an original, but just how good these are and how many are out there is the question. Anyone know more?

Tim

[Dieter3]

Looks totally different to me - you can tell the ones in those pics are replicas (unless there is something better looking that I couldn't find on the site??) This one in that catalog doesn't show the reverse, but the ones I've seen for sale at auction and such are typically stamped "Replica" on the reverse. Case looks wrong too - shape stands out as odd to me, as do the material folds at the hinge interior. The hook, what little I can see, looks wrong, and the ribbon sits wrong on the ring. The one you're posted above looks good to me, but I'm not an expert.

[Tim B]

Hi Dieter!

Thanks for taking the time to look at this and respond!

That's good to know if these are stamped "replica" on the reverse. I would like to see one of these in larger PIC's to really compare, but hopefully fakes are not that good yet.

I agree, the example posted above certainly looks good to me and if it was a replica, I would be hard pressed to tell it apart from an original.

Thanks again!

Tim

[Dieter3]

Yeah, from what I gather - there isn't a whole lot to be concerned about with Japanese fakes. It sounds like Chinese and German fakes are a real issue though from people that I've talked to. Not saying there aren't Japanese fakes, but I believe many of these have been documented and are legitimate copies for whatever reason, with no intent to deceive. That said, there are plenty of replacement ribbons and rosettes out there, so it wouldn't be too hard for a seller to fix something up to try to get a higher price for something - but I just don't think this is really worth it for the average Japanese medal seller, more for a collector to complete an item or when an original piece is missing or very badly damaged/deteriorated. Here's one of those catalog replicas - unfortunately the pics. are small, so you can't really make out the characters. This one has been up for sale forever and a day:

http://page10.auctio...ction/m74408222

If I can remember, I'll hunt through my photo collection and see if I have a closer shot of the kanji stating "COPY/REPLICA", not sure that I do though.

The one issue that has been discussed with 6th class Golden Kites is the re-plating of 7th class awards in gold to fake people into thinking they're buying a 6th. Don't know how prevalent this is, but I'd guess not too prevalent.

Edited November 12, 2010 by Dieter3

[2xvetran]

I can't speak much about medals but Tadao Nakata has been making quality repros for many years. When I was collecting Japanese, his items were very difficult to obtain in the states as he wouldn't ship unless it was a very large quantity order. At various times I have owned Cherry Blossom helmets, NLF Para helmets and entrenching tools by Nakata and all were marked as being reproductions. I found when doing displays that the problem with the markings were that they were in Japanese (go figure), this led many to believe that they were in fact Japanese items from WWII... If he is the producer of the medals, I am sure that they would be marked or altered for identification. In the 70s he made a few impeccable Japanese Army Para helmets, I owned one of these and the story was that they were made from real parts. I could find nothing on this helmet to clearly say that it was a repro, until I finally got a real one. the only difference aside from patina, was that the real one had a magnetic shell and the repro did not.... Scary but true, Nakata is a master among Japanese collectors:ninja: . Scott.