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Issues of 2008

Japanese Militaria: prospects for a collector

Sometimes Japanese militaria including reward bowls and war porcelain are collected while collecting objects of Japanese culture. In our opinion, people became interested in these collectibles because of some tendencies, among them washing out of the traditional Japanese mode of life. And as a result objects used to be kept as relics in Japanese families start appearing at the market.

Remarkable enough and ╚sign╩ event took place in September ≈ the first exhibition of military antiques ╚Archaika-2007╩. The question whether it has justified or not hopes of the collectors is a theme of a separate conversation, but some opportunities of an exhibition have been obviously missed: for example, where there were communication facilities, medicine, military kitchen declared in announcements? All the more the last, that is the kitchen, would give an opportunity to so called ╚reconstructors╩to distinguish themselves and get a snug income. They could not stand in the middle of the exposition as alive mannequins but pour ╚hundred grams╩ to visitors and to treat them to soldier▓s porridge from an army boiler under the recipe of Elizabethan times.

Tank commander pours sake to his crew mates (photo from a newspaper) [zoom (83k)]

It would be possible to arm a pair of companies of Wermacht and Red Army with the weapon exhibited at an exhibition. Though still ╚Archaika-2007╩ did not present Stg-44 (Sturmgewehr-44) that looks like the well-known Russian assault rifle.

Nevertheless we are not going to talk about it. ╚Archaika╩ presented katanas. It looks as if only lazy persons do not expose or sell Japanese swords today. It seemed that all officer corps of the Japanese imperial army has disarmed in Russia (and it involuntarily makes you recollect ╚the skill╩ of modern Chinese gunmakers). Other Japanese militaria practically have not been presented at the exhibition. The most remembered stand was the one that presented an exposition of interior of the Japanese antique salon ╚Yukimori╩ owing to the non╛standard decoration. But even there there were neither Japanese propaganda military porcelain, nor porcelain cups for sаке or award wooden bowls (urushi). It is especially strange because in recent years collecting of Japanese military porcelain and especially cups for sаке has been widespread enough among militaria collectors abroad.

Reward object have been always popular among collectors ≈ those who are interested in this theme could see O.N. Rozanova▓s book ╚Japan: history in awards╩. Release of subjects of propaganda military objects has been stopped after the Second World War. Hence, the age of these objects is not less than 60 years and sometimes much larger. The collecting of wooden and porcelain cups for sаке is attractive for many reasons.

Good safety. Earlier award cups (and usual awards ≈ orders and medals) were kept in a sacred place of a Japanese house, near to an altar and now the americanized young generation, without any remorse and fear to lose face bring them to antique shops. As the cups and awards were quiveringly kept during lives of several generations, they are in good condition as a rule.

Uniqueness. In most cases these are things created for the owner in one copy (except for awards that were created on the same design). Each object reflects individuality of its owner ≈ it bears a name, the symbols ordered at a personal choice, number of a part where the owner of a cup served, inscriptions on the cup tell us what event was the reason to make the cup; sometimes there are patriotic poems and inscriptions. Such information facilitates authentication of an object.

It is difficult to forge such cups. Cups for sake are very seldom forged; therefore the chance to catch a counterfeit in one▓s collection is minimal.

Reasonable price (it varies within the limits of 25√100 dollars depending on the degree of rarity and safety of a cup; plates and trays are a little bit more expensive).

In this article we are going to talk about some types of collectibles of Japanese militaria:
≈ things in urusi style (trays and cups for sаке); the major part of them are award objects;
≈ individual cups for sаке;
≈ ╚propaganda╩ porcelain on military subject.

Memorial and honourable cups. Tray. Japan, early XXth century. Porcelain, gilding. Wood, varnish, urusi technique [zoom (48k)]

In spite of the fact that wooden varnished award bowls cost below gold and silver according to official standing, wooden bowls-urushi are of special interest for collectors. Award bowls urushi (we should pronounce the name as ╚urusi╩) began to be used widely enough after the Japanese-Chinese war of 1894√1895 and the Russian-Japanese war of 1904√1905. ╚Urushi╩ in Japan is a name both for a lacquer tree (its latin name is Rhus vermiciflia), technics of varnish painting and objects made in this technique.

Heat-treated sap of a rare tree of urushi (and a single whole tree gives it in a very little amount) is used as a basis for a varnish which is used to cover wooden preparations. Bowls are made of the tree keaki (zelkova serrata) which is characterized by slow growth. Zelkova is a genus of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. Its annual rings are poorly expressed and have almost identical distance between them. Thereof products made of zelkova have homogeneous surface that suits varnish painting perfectly. Billets from this tree are dried within several years and sooted by smoke using special technology. As result products are not deformed and do not burst for many years.

Japanese lacquer painting used only several colors: the basic background was made in red and sometimes black, inscriptions or drawing in gold. Gold was used in the form of a thin gold foil that filled bezels engraved in a bowl▓s surface (such technique was named ╚chinkin╩; it came from China) or in the form of a paint on the basis of a gold powder ≈ in this case some details of a drawing, for example, an imperial chrysanthemum, tower slightly above the surface.

Sometimes large drawings were carried out in several draughts, after drying of the previous layer of a paint that allowed getting certain ╚third dimension╩ of drawings. Other paints were used boundedly only to finish details. It gave products strict classical look. Thus, manufacturing of subjects in urushi style is an uneasy, long and laborious process and these objects are appreciated and used as awards from way back not without reason.

Memorable trays ╚obon╩ made in urushi technique are worth being mentioned separately. Trays were used in private life to put cups with sake on them. On inscriptions on obon let us define to whom (and when) they belonged and what event that became the reason of this memorable gift to a military man.

In the picture you could an obon that belonged to Suzuka Toyokichi from an armoured cruiser of the first rank Yakumo. The cruiser participated in battles against Port Arthur▓s squadron and later in Tsushima battle. It is necessary to note that such objects, i. e. objects connected with historical events, battles, the ships, etc. are especially appreciated by collectors.

If one could see flowers of sakura, army stars and flags on memorable objects-urushi, the drawings on official bowls were stricter. As a rule, they were decorated only by imperial symbols ≈ flowers of a chrysanthemum and paulonia. We would like to tell more about them. The chrysanthemum with 16 petals (an imperial chrysanthemum) could be represented only on government awards. Other quantity of petals of a chrysanthemum could be on bowls, given to a hero, for example, from inhabitants of his village.

Paulonia is a European name given to a sacred Japanese kiri tree. Kiri flowers and leaves are also imperial symbols in Japan; they are often depicted on trays and cups and used in design of the most popular Japanese award ≈ Award of the Rising Sun.

In the photo you can see silver award bowls for sаке with an imperial chrysanthemum that were official awards and a set of memorable bowls-urushi given to a hero of the Russian-Japanese war by inhabitants of his native village. A chrysanthemum with 12 petals and paulonia are depicted on the bowls. A larger image of paulonia can be seen on an official award bowl for sаке (the extreme on the right, under the sign of the Award of the Rising Sun). On the background there is an obon of black lacquer with a fighting banner and an Inscription ╚As a memento of the service in the 70 regimen╩.

The authentication of porcelain cups for sаке which were used in a daily army life, unlike above-mentioned award and memorable bowls is rather simple. Such cups for sаке were always carried by Japanese soldiers and officers with them everywhere, therefore their safety is usually worse than the one of memorable and award bowls. Sаке is not a simple alcoholic drink, but a part of Japanese military attributes and military rituals.

The increase of the interest to sаке in particular was promoted by the interest to Japanese culture in general. There are a lot of sushi-bars (better say ≈ ╚susi╩, but sushi in Moscow is a special dish that as a rule does not have touch susi, a traditional Japanese snack).

If susi is not just a traditional snack, sаке is also not just an alcoholic drink. We sometimes call sаке a rice wine or vodka; there are prejudices that sаке should be drunk heated, that sаке was drunk only by kamikaze before start and so forth.

Sake is not a rice vodka; this drink is something average between beer and strong wine. Sаке is made of special cultivars of rice fermented in a special way (this rice is not used for food and it is grown only for making sаке). Water used to make sake is also special. Sаке is not always drunk heated ≈ it is heated only in cold weather and often drunk cooled in summer. Many military men ordered personal cups for sаке (but not all the soldiers had them ≈ in the photo tankers are going to drink sаке from mugs and lids of pots). Such porcelain cups were customized and as a rule they bear a name of the owner and a number of its military unit. Plots are standard enough: fighting flags, army stars, sakura flowers, chrysanthemums and paulonias.

Japanese cherry ≈ sakura ≈ whose flowers are long since considered symbols of samurai spirit was often depicted. The fact that cups with the image of a flower of sakura are often offered to inexpert collectors as special cups used by kamikaze can be connected with it. We have already told that sаке is not just an alcoholic drink, but a part of Japanese military culture and its use is a part of military rituals. One of them was a drink of sаке before the last start.

However pilots-kamikaze who decorated themselves with sakura flowers drank sаке they from different cups and not from the ones specially prepared specially for this case. There are cups with a sakura flower, but they bear inscriptions that indicate that they were made much earlier when there were no suicide pilots yet. Therefore one should not believe those who offer ╚kamikaze cups╩ whether they have a sakura, plane or an inscription about ╚a sacred wind╩ (that▓s the translation of the word ╚kamikaze╩) on them.

As for inscriptions they are made by kanji alphabet used up to 1946 and are read the other way ≈ in comparison with actual Japanese writing. It is one more reason why cups with inscriptions are difficult to forge. Especially if an inscription is poetic ≈ not all the Japanese are familiar with this writing now.

There is the following poem on one of 3 cups of times of the Russian-Japanese war that belonged to military man of 57 and 27 infantry regimens: ╚I have finished military service to the Emperor, and I am going to return home to enjoy flowers in my garden╩.

Cups with more interesting plots ≈ images of military men, tanks, arms ≈ are met rarely. Sometimes such images can be interesting from the point of view of reconstruction of military equipment characteristic for certain times. An example is two cups of the period of the Japanese-Chinese war of 1937√1945 (or the Chinese incident of 1937) where a Japanese infantryman at the Great Chinese wall is depicted. Cups for sаке were often made in the form of a helmet, and the bases of a cup were relief images of shells, sakura flower or chrysan-themum.

The cups that belonged to seamen and pilots are seldom met. They are valued more for two reasons: first, there were less seamen and pilots than with military men of land forces; second, the part of these cups went to Davy Jones▓s locker together with their owners... It is fair to say that there was no air force as arm of the service in Japan; there were an army and fleet and each of them had its air forces. In the photo you can see a rare enough cup of 1930s with an anchor and a biplane that belonged to a pilot of naval air forces.

Cups bearing a name of a concrete ship (for some reason they are seldom met: maybe, it was forbidden to write the name of a military man and the name of a ship at the same time?). Nevertheless the presented cup belonged to the seaman Vatanabe Takaichi (the bottom hieroglyphs) from the armoured cruiser Аzuma (the top line of hieroglyphs); this cruiser actively participated in the Russian-Japanese war, including Tsusima battle.