Posted 01/28/2026 3:48 pm
Characters in this "lesser seal" style are difficult to read, which can make interpreting inscriptions difficult.
We can start with dating. Reading around the edge on the reverse, we have [ERA NAME] 35 [YEAR] 5 [MONTH] 1 [DAY], so the first of May of some calendar era. But which one?
If it's Showa, which fits so far as the first character is concerned, then the date translates to 1960. The style of this medal, in particular the right-to-left ordering of the characters, is pretty archaic for 1960, though. That's probably OK if this is a death commemorative or similar. The second character fits "Meiji" better, which would be 1902.
The portrait on the obverse is obviously that of a decorated military officer. From the inscription, we can see also that he was a prince of the Imperial Family (the two characters at the left-hand end tell us that). We can rule out the younger brothers of Emperor Hirohito. Only the eldest, Prince Chichibu, had much of a military career, and he died fairly young in 1953. But here we run into difficulties, because none of the three preceding emperors had any younger brothers who lived to adulthood!
I will have to take a closer look at this later, to see what more I can discover.
We can start with dating. Reading around the edge on the reverse, we have [ERA NAME] 35 [YEAR] 5 [MONTH] 1 [DAY], so the first of May of some calendar era. But which one?
If it's Showa, which fits so far as the first character is concerned, then the date translates to 1960. The style of this medal, in particular the right-to-left ordering of the characters, is pretty archaic for 1960, though. That's probably OK if this is a death commemorative or similar. The second character fits "Meiji" better, which would be 1902.
The portrait on the obverse is obviously that of a decorated military officer. From the inscription, we can see also that he was a prince of the Imperial Family (the two characters at the left-hand end tell us that). We can rule out the younger brothers of Emperor Hirohito. Only the eldest, Prince Chichibu, had much of a military career, and he died fairly young in 1953. But here we run into difficulties, because none of the three preceding emperors had any younger brothers who lived to adulthood!
I will have to take a closer look at this later, to see what more I can discover.
Edited by publius
01/28/2026 3:52 pm
01/28/2026 3:52 pm
