Japan Curious case of early low-quality Rising Suns Orders

[JapanX]

If you hang around long enough you’ll eventually meet them.

This “low-quality” Rising Sun Orders in 4^th, 5^th and 6^th classes.

Most likely they originate from 1895-1920 period.

They all have obvious problems with green (air-cells) and white enamel (underfilling`s, that sometimes looks like tiny black points).

Another stable sign of these orders – very wide silver “brims” on white rays.

Let’s undertake close inspection of such specimen in 6^th class.

Edited October 4, 2012 by JapanX

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Let`s start with the leaf ;)

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Check this out

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Now the sun

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Closer

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Closer

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[JapanX]

Nick Komiya once told me an interesting story about manufacturers of orders during Meiji/Taisho period of time.

Almost all orders made between 1874 and 1929 were contracted by three family workshops

• Haruyuki Hirata
  
• Sousuke Namikawa
  
• Muneyasu Oki
  

Under them were the many subcontractors.

Back in the 1916 there was some sort of a scandal involving these three masters that even got into the newspapers. A total of 9600 Rising suns and Scared Treasures were contracted to these 3 workshops in connection with the war with Germany. The Namikawa workshop was the first to deliver and the quality of the product exemplified a high level of workmanship that attested to their passion to always improve. The Oki and Hirata workshops, however, put in a level of performance that would have been quite "acceptable at the time of minting the Russo Japanese War Medal", but nothing that raised the bar in the way Namikawa did. Thus a great number of pieces delivered by the latter two workshops were ordered to be redone to the huge embarrassment of both masters.

I wonder if the piece we examined (and pieces alike) could be from this batch of “unacceptable orders” or manufactured by this two workshops before their quality become “unacceptable”

Regards,

Nick

Edited October 4, 2012 by JapanX