Japanese Awards - Order of the Rising Sun

[Gordon Williamson]

Introduced 10 April 1875. Awarded to both civilians and military. The majority of the lower grades as shown here were military.

[Gordon Williamson]

Obverse shows a cluster of Paulonia leaves with flowers above.

Edited May 12, 2005 by Gordon Williamson

[Gordon Williamson]

Plain reverse with Kanji characters spelling out "Order of Merit Decoration"

[Gordon Williamson]

Seventh grade.

[Gordon Williamson]

Close up obverse. Design as for 8th Class but inlaid with green enamel on the leaves and purple on the flowers.

[Gordon Williamson]

Reverse Close Up.

[Ulsterman]

Nice. Do you have more information about who got what class of award?

When did you start collecting Japanese stuff?

[Gordon Williamson]

6th Class

[Gordon Williamson]

Obverse close up

[Gordon Williamson]

Reverse. Although it looks black in the scan, the centre is deep red enamel.

[Gordon Williamson]

Info on them isn't that easy to come by. I've only found one really useful book so far "Orders and Medals of Japan and Associated States" by J W Peterson.

There were three main Orders, the Rising Sun ( for general merit both military and civil), the Sacred Treasure ( also both military and civil, usually awarded as a long service type decoration) and the Golden Kite which was purely military.

As far as I can see, awards were by rank. For example, the Golden Kite -Generals 1st Grade to 3rd Grade, Field Grade Officers ( Majors, Colonels etc) 2nd to 4th Grades, Junior Officers 3rd to 5th Grades, NCOs 4th to 6th Grades, and enlisted men 5th to 7th Grades.

I only recently developed an interest but got hooked pretty quick for several reasons, first the quality is superb, second apart from some of the really high grade Japanese awards which went to royalty etc they aren't much faked so originals are easy to find and best of all they aren't too expensive though the really high grades can fetch in the thousands. Certainly cheaper than 3rd Reich pieces !

Nice. Do you have more information about who got what class of award?

When did you start collecting Japanese stuff?

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[Guest Darrell]

Nice stuff Gordon. I've always been tempted to dive into Japanese Orders, but I'm already into about 10 countries as it is

[Gordon Williamson]

Yes, the temptation is very strong. I've a whole load of others "in the pipeline". To be honest, I think I actually prefer this stuff to the German.

The award docs are sometimes available too, problem is trying to figure out what they are for, in Japanese characters !!! :speechless-smiley-004:

[Gordon Williamson]

Another, earlier 6th Class. The shape of the white sunburst rays was changed in 1940. This is the earlier version.

[Gordon Williamson]

Close up obverse

[Gordon Williamson]

Reverse

[Gordon Williamson]

The change in shape is more apparent when the two are compared side by side. This was done because the old shape for the 6th Class was identical to the 5th Class but for the outer rays being pale gilded. Visually the two were too similar to tell apart unless you were close up.

[Gerd Becker]

These are really beautiful awards, Gordon. Here is a medalbar, which i found on a dealers site with a Order of the Rising Sun 6th class.

[Gordon Williamson]

Hi Gerd,

Nice group. Thats actually a 7th Class, not 6th. Next is a China Incident Medal, the Commemorative Medal for the 2600th Anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese Empire (celebrated in 1940) and a Japanese Red Cross membership medal. Certainly the group of a WW2 junior ranking soldier (Enlisted man or a Corporal etc).

[Gerd Becker]

Hi Gerd,

Nice group. Thats actually a 7th Class, not 6th. Next is a China Incident Medal, the Commemorative Medal for the 2600th Anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese Empire (celebrated in 1940) and a Japanese Red Cross membership medal. Certainly the group of a WW2 junior ranking soldier (Enlisted man or a Corporal etc).

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Hi Gordon,

thanks for correction and info. I don?t recall, that i have ever seen one of the higher grades on medalbars. I would love to see a photo.

Grd

[Gordon Williamson]

A rather well worn fifth class.

[Gordon Williamson]

On this grade the metal parts are gilded except for the diagonal rays which remain silver.

[Gordon Williamson]

Reverse

[Gordon Williamson]

Spotted on E-Bay. Although these Japanese awards ( apart from the very rare high grades) haven't really been targetted by fakers (yet!!), some were apparently made outside Japan, France having been named as one country where some were made up for French nationals entitled to the award. These "foreign" made pieces are often innacurate as seen on the suspension of this piece.

[Guest Brian von Etzel]

Here are a couple. Sorry when I photographed the lesser on the right the ribbon wasn't on it.

These are my mother's favorites.