Help Flag and Wax Seal Translation

[Luigi44]

Hello everyone, I posted this on a militaria forum and was given this link by another user to help me out. These items came back from Saipan in 1944. Any help with translating the flag or the symbol on the wax seal is greatly appreciated.

Thank you everyone, Luke

 

[Grandpa Frank]

If you Google "WWII cease resistance leaflets" you can find info on cards like these.

 

[Grandpa Frank]

[/ATTACH]

 

[Toritoribe]

Hello everyone, I posted this on a militaria forum and was given this link by another user to help me out. These items came back from Saipan in 1944. Any help with translating the flag or the symbol on the wax seal is greatly appreciated.

The recipient of the flag is 井上英治 Inoue(family name) Eiji (given name, another reading Hideharu is also possible).

Typical patriot slogans like 祈武運長久 Hope Your Eternal Good Luck in Battle or the Japanese national anthem are written on the flag, but I'm skeptical about the authenticity of the flag. There are many questionable points there.

The owner of the seal is Nakamura(family name).
Japanese seals are not wax seal, by the way. You can see the round hole in the seal case. Red seal paste was there.

Seals in the Sinosphere - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Luigi44]

The recipient of the flag is 井上英治 Inoue(family name) Eiji (given name, another reading Hideharu is also possible).

Typical patriot slogans like 祈武運長久 Hope Your Eternal Good Luck in Battle or the Japanese national anthem are written on the flag, but I'm skeptical about the authenticity of the flag. There are many questionable points there.

The owner of the seal is Nakamura(family name).
Japanese seals are not wax seal, by the way. You can see the round hole in the seal case. Red seal paste was there.

Seals in the Sinosphere - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 32594

Thank you for the help and response on these items. If you don't mind me asking, what makes you skeptical about the flag? This is the only one I have and I don't know too much about Good Luck Flags.

Thanks, Luke

 

[Majestic]

Typically you will find a variety of writing styles, and a variety of writing implements used on the flag. Some signatures will be thin and sharp, and others will be thick and blotchy where the ink blots onto the cloth/silk of the flag. If you are from the US, it is much like a high school yearbook. Most people sign their names. Some may add a patriotic message of encouragement. It is unusual to see prominent patriotic messages written by the same pen, in the same handwriting style. The main message at the top is written very clumsily. The spacing, the balance, the size of the characters is all slightly haphazard.

If you search in this forum for other threads containing the phrase "good luck flags" or "yosegaki" you will find a million examples. I would say about 70% of the flags we see look suspicious. There was one posted very recently (within the last 3 weeks) that looked genuine. It was addressed to someone from Sawaguchi mura in Akita prefecture. If you can find that thread that will give you a good example of a flag that looks genuine.

 

[Toritoribe]

In addition to Majestic-san's explanation;

Only two writers wrote the whole slogans and signatures.
The writers were not good at writing as if they actually didn't know kanji.
A slogan wrote over the name of the recipient. It's usually not done since it's very impolite.
The addresses of the presenters are Tokyo, Kyoto , Osaka and Kobe. It's not impossible, but quite rare. It seems more likely as if they just wrote addresses they only knew.
There are 8 signatures there, and 4 of them are female. A female presenter wrote her words in male language. These are not impossible, either, but very uncommon.
I've never seen the Japanese national anthem was written on a yosegaki.

 

[Luigi44]

In addition to Majestic-san's explanation;

Only two writers wrote the whole slogans and signatures.
The writers were not good at writing as if they actually didn't know kanji.
A slogan wrote over the name of the recipient. It's usually not done since it's very impolite.
The addresses of the presenters are Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. It's not impossible, but quite rare. It seems more likely as if they just wrote addresses they only knew.
There are 8 signatures there, and 4 of them are female. A female presenter wrote her words in male language. These are not impossible, either, but very uncommon.
I've never seen the Japanese national anthem was written on a yosegaki.

Wow. Thank you everyone for the help. This is a bummer to me, but hopefully a good example of some fakes out there so no one makes the same mistake I made. Good learning experience. Thanks again everyone