Two old badges

[edardna]

Hi, everyone!

 

Returning from China I've bought two old badges for friends back home who have a soft spot for curios and antiques, but my meager Chinese doesn't allow me to decipher what's written on them. Could anyone enlighten me, providing both the translation and the characters in simplified Chinese?

 

Very much appreciated!

 

Photos in the following link: https://imgur.com/a/aHfaJno. First badge from 1948 - from the civil war, I guess? -, second one from 1923.

[edardna]

Pasting the pictures directly in here:

 

 

(Just discovered that's possible, but couldn't edit my previous post).

 

[Jim]

The first one says it's a 特等功 (special merit - on a quick search seems to be highest grade of merit medal in certain periods) medal issued by the 淮海军分区 (Huaihai Military Subdistrict - can't find a reference to this, again on a quick search, though you may have heard of the famous Huaihai campaign).

 

Second says it's a member's medallion for the Jiang'an Jinghan Railway Worker's Union - see here for their famous strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Hankou_railway#Railway_workers'_strike That fits your 1923 date.

The four characters in the centre of the medallion read 劳工神圣 labour/workers are sacred or similar, popular slogan at the time.

[VocabSplitter]

The trick is to read the words from right to left.

 

The second badge says:

劳工神圣

江岸京汉铁路工会

会员证

 

There is one character I cannot recognize in the first badge, here are the words that I can recognize:

特等功

淮海军分X (the X is the character that I cannot recognize).

[Jim]

Just now, VocabSplitter said:

淮海军分X (the X is the character that I cannot recognize).

I had trouble reading that too so must admit 区 in full form was a bit of a guess from context.

[VocabSplitter]

3 hours ago, Jim said:

I had trouble reading that too so must admit 区 in full form was a bit of a guess from context.

Yes,  区 is probably correct. It's written as  區 in traditional Chinese, and that looks very similar to the character written on the badge.

[889]

You can pick up another 淮海军 badge on JD.com for 42RMB, plus shipping.

 

https://item.m.jd.com/product/15190121880.html

 

Needless to say, there's reasonable speculation on the web these are repros.

 

Here's a description in Chinese of the other badge. If original, said to be "very rare."

 

http://www.chnmuseum.cn/Default.aspx?TabId=212&AntiqueLanguageID=1338

[Zbigniew]

If, as suggested in the opening post, these awards were originally issued 25 years apart, I think reasonable speculation that they are repros becomes practically a certainty. Look at the two oblong ribbon carriers; they are identical in shape and size across both medals, and the ribbons slung between them are identical in their base colour as well as their shape and size. I think the message is you're meant to own only one of these kinds of repros; owning two like this that are (meant to be) decades apart gives the game away.

 

As someone with a close relative who has a large historic medal collection I can tell you that details like this, even if on different examples of the same award, are typically subject to marked variation over time, and the chances of both ribbon carriers and ribbons being identical in this way on medals 25 years apart is practically zero.

 

Having said all this, I'd be delighted, for your sake, to be proved wrong.