I recently bought these three different Good Luck flags and I'd like to know what is written on them as well as whether they might be fakes or not. I would assume the two with stamps can't be faked but I could be wrong.
Hello - all of these could be fake. The one on the far right (as arrayed in the post above), says 必勝 on top (read right to left), which means "certain victory". Down the right side is thededication, to a Mr. Kitani Hideo of Ōsaka. But Ōsaka is spelt differently from the major city of Ōsaka. Also, the person presenting the flag is from Fukushima prefecture (I can't make out the city). The writing looks OK, but the flag looks quite bare. Strange that there are no other signatures on it, but its not necessarily a deal-breaker.
The middle one looks fake to me. The "rising sun" flags are rare, and usually associated with the navy, I think. At the top it says Tennō Heika Banzai (Long live the emperor). It is sort of unusual to see this scrawled across the top. On the left side are the words to the Japanese national anthem, which is also unusual. It's addressed to "Yokoyama Yūtarō" on the occasion of "going off to war", but the expression used - 出征兵士 - seems very weird.
The one on the far left has writing that is very sylized, and not entirely legible to me. It seems kind of naked. I don't have a good feeling about it.
Of all of these, the one on the far right has the potential to be real, but its not very interesting because it has no other names or slogans on it. (A better close up of the writing on the side might help me identify it).
Thanks a lot for the info and your input! Yeah, I was worried about the "rising sun" one since I haven't seen any other Good luck flags like it anywhere else. Regarding the flag on the left; shouldn't the shrine stamp add some credence to it likely not being a fake? If any are fake, do you think it more likely they're recently made or made just after the war? In other words, do you think they still vintage items?
Regarding the flag on the right; I was hoping the family stamp might be real because it's so faded, but I guess that can be faked too. Here is a closer up view of the writing for the flag on the right:
I think the one addressed to Kitani Hideo is not from Ōsaka - I think I have just misidentified the kanji, and I can't quite make it out, but my guess is that the giver and the recipient are both based in Fukushima prefecture (Sukagawa town).
Stamps on the flag don't necessarily make me think the flag is real - stamps are the easiest thing to obtain and press onto a piece of cloth, especially when there is money to be made. Having said that, the stamps are something that deserve to be looked at. Unfortunately the stamps on yours are a bit illegible to me. As I said, the one on the far right in the original post seems the most plausible to me, and the red stamp next to the presenter's name seems Ok to me, regardless of the legibility. Presumably it would be the name of the presenter (KASAI Yasuji).
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