Historical Chinese pin help

[Ash24]

Hello all,

A friend of mine who collects WW2 era items has come across a pin that seems to have Chinese characters across it. We've run into a couple of walls trying to find someone who can translate the front and I was referred here by someone saying this is the place to be.

http://yfrog.com/jc001dmj

Sorry for the large size of the pic, but it was blown up so that you could read it. Any help would be much appreciated.

[jbradfor]

We like big pictures B)

I think it says

贈祺安劉令司?軍陸

Not sure of the translation.

贈 can mean to give as a gift; it can (apparently) also mean to "to bestow an honorary title after death". If this is a WWII pin, that might be appropriate.

劉 is typically a name

軍 means military

[skylee]

贈祺安劉令司?軍陸

Almost. Well done. It is 贈祺安劉令司總軍陸, to be read from right to left - Presented by the Army Chief Commander Liu Anqi.

The Chief Commander Liu was a general of the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party). A bit more information -> http://www.paradoxia...eaders#Liu_Anqi

[ma3zi1]

So to clarify for the poster:

The text on the pin says:

"贈祺安劉令司總軍陸"

Where a variant of "總" is written.

The text is to be read from right-to-left:

陸軍總司令劉安祺贈

陸軍 = "army"

總司令 = "commander-in-chief"

劉安祺 = (a name, 劉 is the surname Liu, 安祺 is a given name Anqi)

贈 = "to give as a present"

陸軍 總司令 劉安祺 贈

So as skylee said:

Presented by the Army Chief Commander Liu Anqi

[jbradfor]

I feel so stupid. WHY WHY WHY was I reading that left-to-right? I should know better. I was even looking for the given name after the 劉, and was thinking "祺安 sounds like it could be a given name, but why would they put the given name first?". Sigh.

I don't feel too bad for missing the 總, if it was a variant. I have enough trouble with all the "standard" forms, I'll leave learning all the (common) variants to another decade...

[ma3zi1]

@jbradfor

Haha, don't be so hard on yourself!

I've been more than impressed with your work in the past

[jbradfor]

Like my reading of 口? Another one of my highlights