Hi,
I find myself in the position of acquiring a decent quantity of larger calibre projectiles from Japan. Most of them are early ones, roughly from the period 1900 - 1918. They are located in Japan, and as some of you will know, not quite everything encountered over there is of Japanese manufacture.
I have managed to ID everything, except for four projectiles. This is one of them. It looks like nothing Japanese that I have documentation on, which would be the stuff used by Japan in (mainly) the later Showa era.
Last of the lot: I think this projectile will be the easiest one to ID, due to the markings. Here's what I know and suspect: the projectile seems to have a calibre of 76.2mm, or something close to that. The length seems to be close to 300mm. The shape of it, combined with the opening at the bottom for a base fuze, would make it an APHE one, and the markings very strongly suggest to me that it is of British manufacture.
The nose of the projectile has markings that seem to read: "16/8/1901", I have seen many British manufactured 47x131R casings with date stamps like "8/1901" (i.e. August 1901) on the head, so I very strongly suspect this projectile was marked with a complete date, i.e. August 16th, 1901.
Apart from these markings, there are quite a few markings in the side of the projectile. Unfortunately in none of the pictures they can be made out completely beyond a doubt, but the top row seems to have something like: "Q F" (= "Quick Fire", possibly ????), the second row seems to possibly be "12 Pr V", the "12" is pretty clear, same for the "V". I'm guessing it to represent "12 Pr mark V", but again, not certain... The third row seems to be "C S" and there seems to be a 4th row, with only a "K".
I looked and asked for a broad arrow, but saw none (and was also not informed of the presence of one). The Japanese did use the 12Pr calibre. I have seen at least one casing that was Japanese manufactured at Kure, in Meiji 43 (= 1910). From the dates I've seen on Japanese early Navy casings, it appears that the Japanese used British manufactured casings somewhere up to at least 1901, and that they started to appear as Japanese manufacture (all seen ones made at Kure) as of roughly 1910. I don't have details on the period in between, and it will take many more headstamps to properly guesstimate this well. 1901 would at least match with my suspicions of possible British manufacture for Japan...
The questions:
1-Can anyone ID it for me?
2-British 12Pr? Marked for export?
3-Does anyone have any idea what the value of this might be? If I buy it, it will come with a pretty hefty price tag (item + shipping costs from Japan are expensive).
4-If not Japanese used: Is anyone particularly interested in it?
Thanks in advance and cheers,
Olafo
I find myself in the position of acquiring a decent quantity of larger calibre projectiles from Japan. Most of them are early ones, roughly from the period 1900 - 1918. They are located in Japan, and as some of you will know, not quite everything encountered over there is of Japanese manufacture.
I have managed to ID everything, except for four projectiles. This is one of them. It looks like nothing Japanese that I have documentation on, which would be the stuff used by Japan in (mainly) the later Showa era.
Last of the lot: I think this projectile will be the easiest one to ID, due to the markings. Here's what I know and suspect: the projectile seems to have a calibre of 76.2mm, or something close to that. The length seems to be close to 300mm. The shape of it, combined with the opening at the bottom for a base fuze, would make it an APHE one, and the markings very strongly suggest to me that it is of British manufacture.
The nose of the projectile has markings that seem to read: "16/8/1901", I have seen many British manufactured 47x131R casings with date stamps like "8/1901" (i.e. August 1901) on the head, so I very strongly suspect this projectile was marked with a complete date, i.e. August 16th, 1901.
Apart from these markings, there are quite a few markings in the side of the projectile. Unfortunately in none of the pictures they can be made out completely beyond a doubt, but the top row seems to have something like: "Q F" (= "Quick Fire", possibly ????), the second row seems to possibly be "12 Pr V", the "12" is pretty clear, same for the "V". I'm guessing it to represent "12 Pr mark V", but again, not certain... The third row seems to be "C S" and there seems to be a 4th row, with only a "K".
I looked and asked for a broad arrow, but saw none (and was also not informed of the presence of one). The Japanese did use the 12Pr calibre. I have seen at least one casing that was Japanese manufactured at Kure, in Meiji 43 (= 1910). From the dates I've seen on Japanese early Navy casings, it appears that the Japanese used British manufactured casings somewhere up to at least 1901, and that they started to appear as Japanese manufacture (all seen ones made at Kure) as of roughly 1910. I don't have details on the period in between, and it will take many more headstamps to properly guesstimate this well. 1901 would at least match with my suspicions of possible British manufacture for Japan...
The questions:
1-Can anyone ID it for me?
2-British 12Pr? Marked for export?
3-Does anyone have any idea what the value of this might be? If I buy it, it will come with a pretty hefty price tag (item + shipping costs from Japan are expensive).
4-If not Japanese used: Is anyone particularly interested in it?
Thanks in advance and cheers,
Olafo
