a $500,000 dollar story

[khstover]

Hi,

Check out http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

This is an amazing story, which I make no judgement on vis-a-vis veracity.

Kevin

[ROBB]

I love this quote "US-Japanese war" what about everyone else ?Rob.

[willy]

Someone needs to tell them to say no to drugs, they are rare but 6 figs I don't see it.

[fknorr]

kinda hard to display....

[Bill D.]

The raising of this first US flag to be flown over the Japanese mainland and the first contact with Japanese mainland forces was the official end of WWII.

Right.
Once a flag is taken off of a battleship, that ends the war.
Give me a break.
Sure, that whole ceremony, with MacArthur, the Allied commanders, the Japanese delegation, the signing of leather-bound documents, THAT was all pretty much irrelevant window-dressing. The OFFICIAL end of the war in the Pacific came when a U.S. Navy commander hauled down a battleship's flag.

The Japanese expressed a great interest in the flags for display at a War Shrine and we were told that the return of these flags to Japan would help release the souls of the 2.46 million Japanese dead from the war according to Shinto principles.

Give me another break.

And $500,000. ?????

Where do these people come from ? Where do they get these ideas about value ?

They look like nice flags with a great history and provenance. But they have some condition issues and are too large to display unless you live in an airplane hanger.

And the greed that is evident in the $500,000 price really turns me off to them.

[fknorr]

What would a "fair" starting price on these be?

[walt]

I think they may have watched a little too much antiques roadshow!

[kennethc]

It was a typing mistake. It is supposed to be Japanese Yen 500,000


just guessing

[Bill D.]

What would a "fair" starting price on these be?

It's only my opinion, Fran, and it would depend somewhat to me on the condition of the flags, but if I think that if I saw the grouping at a show, and the price was $2,500 to $3,000, I would think "That's cool". If the price were $3,500 or more, I would think "Too much".

But that's just me. Maybe to collectors of strictly Japanese militaria, or collectors of Pacific War material, it would be worth more.

[Chris_Werner]

IMO, if this story is true, these flags would be priceless national treasures to both the USA and Japan. They should belong to the people, and be properly displayed. It would be neat to see our government buy them, and present them to the people of Japan as a gesture of reconciliation and friendship.

[PaulR]

You are right... They do need to go to the government. Either the American or Japanese but...

IMHO, we dont need to be the ones doing the "reconciling"... No hurt feelings or disrespect meant... just my feelings.

Best regards
Paul Reck

[John F.]

I think it is pretty big of him to offer to pay the shipping cost...

[blinky]

I'd double what Bill said for a fair price. It's almost impossibe to find flags attributed to ships, and as you can imagine impossible to find ones attributed to battleships. IJN ensigns of this size are very rare because of their size, if someone found one who would want to drag it back to the US?
Most likely the Japanese government really wouldn't be that interested in it, these types of flags really didn't hold a lot of meaning and to many it would just represent either the military aggression of the government pre-WWII or the shame of defeat. The only group that I think it would hold any real significance to at this point is the JMSDF.

By the way, if someone would pay $500,000 for it, I'm sure they wouldn't have any problems finding a way to display it

eric

[RoyA]

I'd rather have 500 high priced hookers (or 5000 cheap ones)

[coastie]

Maybe the Casino that bought Grandmas ghost cane and the Virgin Mary Grilled cheese sandwich would buy this and they can have 2.5 million ghosts, grandma would have a lot of company. How many does it take to play Canasta?