Japanese Bayonet Flag

[Aragorn243]

I like how they had to I'd it as "Jap flag". I mean, the marines on the ship probably wouldn't know. LOL

Seriously, nice photo. Ever thought about taking it and getting it redone without the names?

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I like how they had to I'd it as "Jap flag". I mean, the marines on the ship probably wouldn't know. LOL

Seriously, nice photo. Ever thought about taking it and getting it redone without the names?

Who could do that? That would be nice to have. I don't know If I mentioned this before but I bought a envelope post marked from Dad's ship on ebay. It was from one of the guys in this photo to his parents. Upper left corner Staltman.

[Aragorn243]

There are a lot of places that could remove the names. CVS pharmacy does it around here.

What they need is the original photo. They scan it and return it so you don't lose it. They then can remove creases, tears, writing, etc and enhance the photo and possibly enlarge it as well. It's not cheap obviously but I'm thinking it's around $20-$30.

The envelope is nice. You could do a collage of sorts. Cleaned photo with the original below and the envelope.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I believe I will do just that.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Thanks for the clarification Aragorn - after the ice-cream parlor flag I am very cautious.

OK, it could be genuine. But I am still cautious and there is still the question of authenticity. Since the flag style is current, one imagines that it would be fairly simple to get a modern one, write on a load of plausible names, then put it through the wash a few times to fade the writing.

One the other hand, if it is totally genuine, then many would say you should not remove the names.

[Aragorn243]

I suppose it is possible but sometimes you have to take a chance based on the reliability of the person you are getting it from. This seller specializes in bayonets and swords and has not listed another Japanese flag in the past six months. I didn't go back any further than that, didn't see the need. Now if this was coming from China where the seller was selling three a week, that would be a different story.

Unless there is a shop somewhere producing flags to WWII period standards which in itself would be cost prohibitive, there is no source. Flags today are produced out of synthetics. There would also need to be a market for such a product and while yes, there are collectors of Japanese militaria, the money isn't the same as say German militaria, not yet anyway.

I'm also no handwriting expert, let alone capable of reading Japanese but there are at least five different distinct writing styles with three types of ink involved in the writing on this flag.

Given that these were fairly common bring backs, I'm going with the odds that this is legit.

Besides, this looks nothing remotely like your Ice Cream Parlor flag which is rather unique.