Need Help. Chinese Artifact Translation. Seal Script?

[Kathleen]

Hello, I hope someone here can help me. I have an antique buckle with a Dragon on the front, with a small inscription in the lower left corner, and a lengthy inscription on the back.

After trying to have it translated in modern Japanese Kanji, I have discovered it is apparently traditional Chinese in an old font used before World War II. On the other hand, when I look at Traditional Chinese, I do not see these characters. They are very "rounded". Looking into this further, I am wondering now if they are some sort of seal script. I have pictures of the buckle.

Here are links to pictures of the buckle, front and back.

Front of Buckle:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8734/dragonfront.jpg

Back of Buckle:

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7064/dragonback.jpg

As you can see when viewing the back of the buckle, a few of the characters on the ends of lines one and two are hidden by the hinge on each end. So here are additional views of the inscription on the back, where the hidden characters are visible:

Left side characters that were obscured by hinge:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/672/dragonleftside1.jpg

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4208/dragonleftside2.jpg

Right Side Characters that were obscured by belt loop bar:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/2575/dragonrightside1.jpg

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1538/dragonrightside2.jpg

If anyone can provide any information or insight at all on this writing, I would be extremely greatful.

Thank you, sincerely,

[Hofmann]

front of buckle: 陸

back： Is this really seal script? 健康保険（險）体（體）育穴會態本縣昭和十一年

It was made after World War II, because it contains Shinjitai.

[Kathleen]

Hoffman, thanks. But I'm not sure how it could have been made "after World War II". It was given to me by a dear friend whose father brought it home with him from World War II.

I'll have to take your word for it. I asked about the Seal Script because one of the characters is identical to a character I noted on a Seal Script scroll, and the roundness of all of them bears no resemblance at all to the modern Kanji I have seen.

Can you read what it says?

Thanks for your help, I sincerely appreciate it.

[Hofmann]

The character on the front is in seal script. The characters on the back are not, but are written to resemble seal script. Perhaps it wasn't made after World War II (but in 1937, as it says on the buckle). Characters like 険 may have been in use, even if they weren't official simplifications.

And I just typed the characters in my previous post.

[usayare]

The characters are

第七回

健康保險體育大會

熊本縣

昭和十一年

they are written in 篆書（Seal scripts）

昭和十一年 = 1936

This should be a "souvenir" for join the assembly（健康保險體育大會）on 1936（昭和十一年）