Naval Aiguillettes
Here are just a couple of Naval Aiguillettes I have in my collection. Here is a Silver and Gold. Silver is the more uncommon, worn by members of the Imperial Family while the gold is worn by General Staff personnel from Lieutenant Commander and above.
There must have been another more common silver one then, as the Navy Uniform Regs for 1914 say silver was for adjutants and gold was for generals and general staff. The general's version was in thicker cord as indicated in the official diagram below.
Here the earlier 1895 version and the Emperor's version
I read up a bit on the silver cords. Those were not worn by the member of the Imperial family himself, but by the aides provided to each royal member by the Army and Navy. In the Army, silver ones were only for aides to the royal member, but in the navy, silver cords were worn by both adjutants and aides to royal members. Royal family members were obligated to serve in the army or navy and they all got such aides. Army adjutants wore a yellow striped sash, so they did not use the silver cords.
With the gold ones, if the cord diameter is 5.4mm it's general staff and if 6mm, it's a general's cord.
Thanks for the information and clarification! That is great to know and to have this info for collectors.
One thing I could not fully clarify to myself today is the difference in the design of the metal tips. Your gold and silver pair have matching designs, but the top of the crowns do not match the regulation drawings. On the other hand your 2nd silver cord at the bottom is a precise match with regs. There were two versions in terms of chronology, first one introduced on 6th July 1886 and the second on 26th Feb. 1914. At first, I assumed the difference in crowns was due to the two versions, but reg drawings prove otherwise.
The lone silver example shows the correct navy crown design, but for the other two, they may be using the army style crown, which seems to have been a common practice. However, unfortunately the army reg books do not have large enough illustrations of the metal tips for me to confirm the design on the crown, so at this time, it remains an unconfirmed assumption.
My yellow set
Nice pictures of naval aiguillettes. I was especially interested in the drawings posted by Nick because it shows that one of the pendants has an opening at the end where a pencil can be put inside. I have a set of old aiguillettes of which one pendant has the same opening. The cords are also thicker, and a Japanese expert friend told me the it was probably made privately by the owner. Tried to attach pictures, hope it worked.
regards, Pieter
Very Beautiful Items!! Thank you all for sharing! Regards,Geoff
Yes, very common to see with built in pencils. The Japanese word for the part at the tip of the cord is written "stone pencil" and there are those that claim that the cords were originally intended to hold chalk and other writing utensils for those who had to frequently mark positions on maps.
Another noteworthy feature of Japanese cords is that unlike German cords, the positioning of the hanging loop was different depending on uniform. Dress uniforms hung them at the top button, but they never did that with closed collar uniforms, which movies frequently get wrong.
Also, generals had thicker cords. Generals not belonging to the general staff could only wear them with dress uniforms and not with other uniforms, but from the regulation change of 1942, generals were allowed to wear them on uniforms regardless of their functions.
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