Navy Helmet Anchors - Real, Fake, ??? What do you think?

[Long Shot]

Here's a knowledge stretching challenge. Three in IJN helmet Anchors a row - which are Good and which are Bad and why

Click on Images to enlarge them




BACK SIDE VIEW

[AZPhil]

I'm not an expert but I'll play, B & C fake. Both have the pentagon shaped bursting star in the middle and B also has the upper anchor arm's are even. the right is supposed to be shorter than the left one. Not sure about A
This is what I have learned on this site. Lets see how I did?

Semper Fi
Phil

[Gunto]

A is real. B and C is fake.

[AZPhil]

Good to know I am learning something on these.
Now if I could just ID the real ones with the confidence I had on spotting the fakes..

I guess more reading & more studying the post made here. I don't see many here in Yuma,

I do so love this site..

Semper Fi
Phil

[delibes]

Nice, Thanks for sharing guys.

[Nick Komiya]

For whatever it's worth, here's the example on my navy cherry blossom helmet referred to earlier. It is magnetic and tightly curved to hug the helmet surface well.

[AZPhil]

OK now I'm confused.
The one Nick is showing has a pentagon shaped starburst.
Well here I thought that pentagon shaped starburst were the way to tell if it is fake???????
For a second I thought I had gotten my assessment correct. Now I doubting myself.
HELP!!!
Semper Fi
Phil

[Nick Komiya]

One fact you need to bear in mind, as I have explained elsewhere in my threads, is that prior to January 1939, Japan had no knowhow to mass produce steel badges in quantities over 1000 pcs/stamping die. So in 1932, at the time the navy begged the army for 1700 cherry blossom helmets, they were not set up to mass produce these badges. Because the army star was in steel, they must have felt obliged to do the navy symbol in steel as well, but there was no way they could deal with the production volume of badges necessary for the navy version of the Type 90 helmets that came later, using the same stamping die.

Stamping out a star shape from steel and stamping a steel badge with detailed surface designs in relief are totally different propositions, however, and the former technology was not directly applicable to the latter.

Simply said, stamping dies for steel badges and the later nonferrous high volume production badges were made from totally different stamping dies, so differentiation should be made not to judge them by the same attributes. Also the later badges would likely tend to show more variation, due to multiple suppliers involved.

Shown below is the navy badge from the last version of the cherry blossom helmet (with Type 90 configuration liner and vent holes).

[Long Shot]

Here are some pictures of a broken (but mostly there) anchor on the front of a cherry blossom helmet posted at a dealers website. The helmet is long gone but it is an interesting study itself. It's original paint color was the IJN grey. The anchor has many features you would expect but some are really different from other early anchors. Notice the cut out features along the lower anchor blades and the very generic fouled chain/rope design. Interesting. Also on the backside the tabs have rounded ends. Is it Original or Fake or a variation?

Helmet pictures are located here - remember helmet was sold YEARS ago.
Early Imperial Japanese Navy Cherry Blossom Vented Helmet

Front view




Rear view: Click to expand





*Dont get thrown off by the little piece of metal behind the badge it could have been added by a collector to take up the gap that exists when the liner is gone - adding some filler keeps the anchor in place without slop. I often just tape the anchor down from the inside to keep it from moving and scraping up the outside paint - anchors and stars have sharp edges and can dick up a helmet job paint fast if you are not careful

[Type4]

The sign of paint here prove who the anchore was put than and not was in the helmet in origin.