First one is the reverse side of a real flag and the second is the front side of a recently made very poor fake trying to parade as NLF.
Thanks for the quick response! Can you tell me how I can recognize the fake ones from the real ones myself? Because I almost bought that fake one online :-)
Kind regards
A general rule of thumb is that if a suspected Japanese war-time flag has a full unit designation ... that is a red flag. But you'd need to be able to read Japanese *and* have a knowledge of Japanese culture of the period. Nick Komiya has, on many occasions, helped us identify fake signature flags; one in particular was written by a Japanese, but it included the names of famous Japanese people. Nick said that instance would be the equivalent of having a US flag with the signatures of Truman, John Wayne, Abraham Lincoln, and Paul Bunyan [or similar names].
Other obvious "red flags" are the so-called "Seabee Specials" and "Tojo Flags" made by US Servicemen to sell to gullible GIs; as well as some bonafide Occupation-era signature flags given by Japanese workers/friends to departing Occupation servicemen.
Cheers,
--Guy
You should post flags you’re interested in here first before buying.
Also, have a look at this website for some genuine examples. Mike also wrote a book on these flags and is a member here as well.
Imperial Japanese Good Luck Flags, One-Thousand Stitch Belts, Banners, Amulets of Protection, Militaria Collectibles FORTUNES OF WAR MILITARIA - FortunesOfWarMilitaria.com
Regards
Russ
Last edited by RussM; 10-21-2017 at 06:49 AM. Reason: Sp.
The kanji are "invented kanji" from 1935. It reads Sa-Mu-Ha-Ra and is a Shinto talisman. Read about it here.
If you google-image search "Samuhara" you'll see other examples.
--Guy
When Mike wrote his book on Yosegaki flags, none of his translators could make any sense of those words either, so I was asked.
The problem is that they are not Kanji at all, but characters made up for the Shinto religion and called Shinji 神字. Samuhara is not the only example, as there are other examples of made up characters like that.
Samuhara is like the "Force" from Star Wars; it refers to the force in the universe that takes kinks out of the flow of Qi (spiritus in Latin), which Feng Shui is also all about. Thus all old Japanese homes have a roof tile with a face of a demon on it in the one corner from which bad Qi can enter the house in order to prevent it from entering.
Samuhara Shrine may have only been established in 1935 but the word was already in popular use during the Russo-Japanese War. Thus wearing the word on one's body was regarded like a wearable version of Onigawara, the demon tile.
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