WARNING Round Ratings

[Jareth]

Friendly heads up seller from Canada on eBay listing endless amounts of black on white circular round ratings. All are current reproductions! Seller claims they’re original. eBay doesn’t care. Beware

[Mikasa]

These ratings are of Showa 7 type.
Here is the reference link,
大日本帝國陸海軍 その他の軍装品・資料 ?_0
Not much on the market. Some collectors are not aware of their existence.

[adachi]

Mikasa, do you have any primary sources to confirm what you have posted? The designs seen on the ratings posted were all adopted years before 1932, but the examples you have shown all are obvious reproductions.

[Jareth]

This Canadian criminal has also been selling high end fake white officers field caps as well. Must have a roll of white fabric. I have contacted eBay. Mikasa seems to have just joined after my post & in defense of these fakes! What a coincidence the eBay seller has added the same unfounded nonsensical excuses for these fakes in his eBay description! Seller does not offer returns and that’s says a lot!

[adachi]

Major changes to the IJN regulations were published in the government gazette, which is very well archived. Yet there is no mention of the Showa 7 (1932) revision that created these insignias which coincidentally just Mikasa and the seller in question allege to exist. We can conclude Mikasa is at the very least misled and given their new account used solely to defend these fakes, it's not unreasonable to assume they are cooperating with the scammer or even the scammer themself. Maybe on a Facebook group you could get away with it, but on this forum we actually have many users who can read Japanese and check the regulations.

[Larry C]

Ebay doesnt care as long as they get their percentage on any commission made on items sold.

Items sold whether militaria or just run of the mill junk or real is all just hit or miss in being authentic. hand bags jewelry tools etc.
Facebook groups are hit and miss as well ...mostly peddlers with no care to history or authenticism.

I agree with Adachi as well the real truth lays within the framework of collectors and these forums.

Regards Larry

[ghp95134]

Ebay doesnt care unless it is nazi as long as they get their percentage on any commission made on items sold....

Fixed it for ya!

-- Guy

[Mikasa]

I would never tell original or repro with pictures only. I have some coming in the mail, will post my finding when I receive them.

[Jareth]

So you don’t find it suspicious that seller has large quantities of insignia in mint condition with low starting bid and a no return policy? That and your timing of joining this forum, posting in defense of insignia and the seller changing his description with same additional incorrect comments from you? Just look at many of the insignia and the incorrect positioning of black on white circle ! Left to right balancing is off! That’s from pictures only!

[Mikasa]

You may well-retain your suspicion.

I mutilated one CPO rating from what I just received to inspect the construction and test the materials. Before doing that, I confirmed their sizes are right. Their tone of aging, dirt and smell from storage shows they date back many decades. How many decades? Well, I won’t be surprised if it turns out to be eight decades or so.

I tested the face and backing fabrics, the applique, the sewing threads holding the round shape, and the embroidery threads to confirm they are all natural materials, no noticeable amount of synthetic materials detected. This is a good sign for original. The sewing threads have the top thread thinner than the bobbing thread. I don’t know why, but this is same as what’s on my other ratings. Well, you may say all my ratings are repro.

The backing fabric is canvas like structure that is different from the face fabric of twill and feels kind of being stiffened with starch, which is also same as my other ratings.

Let me talk about the embroidery and my thoughts on it. The embroideries are hand-made very neatly. From what I can see at the back of the face fabric, the angle of stitches and the end knot suggest they are made by proficient hands and well-organized process. The proficiency of hand-craft usually requires repeating for hundreds times, even thousands times on one artwork. What is the incentive to reproduce thousands of the ratings with an overhead to sell on a market of militaria-> WW2-> Japan-> navy-> uniform-> insignia? How big is this market? Is it as big as iPhone or Tesla that you can easily sell thousands and millions of them? And for the price they actually realized? Uh-oh, this is my suspicion that they are not repro logically.

The applique on this CPO rating that I mutilated is not perfectly centered as described by the OP. From the pictures on eBay, some are even more off than mine. But I am not worried with that. On the contrary, in many cases, this indicates they were not first quality products, hence becoming deadstock to survive all the years as being mint. And I won’t be surprised when I see stitches run on the cherry leaves of a type 3 cap insignia. They are just uniform for soldiers, not haute-couture.

If you let me weigh in, I retain my suspicion that they can hardly be reproduction. One thing is for sure that the price they are sold makes some people unhappy. But if they are deadstock, who can stop it.