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There are a lot of events to keep track of when it comes to these cups - they often reference various events and years. This is meant to be a handy guide to the major events that happened. We take 1895 as the starting point - almost all the items come from 1895 or later. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Here I only list the major conflicts - there are smaller incidents, events, and what not, but those are too numerous to list one by one.

1894-95: First Sino Japanese War 日清戦争. The fighting mostly...

One of the things that annoy me is when I find cups that are otherwise really nice, but through years of neglect and poor preservation, have ended up in a horrible state. This cup above is one such example, and it pains me because you can still see traces of the cup underneath - a soldier rowing his own boat up a river, symbolizing, I think, a hardworking soldier. That, and also because I've sold a cup like this before almost ten years ago

They're obviously not identical, but it's the same theme, and...

A question I hear from time to time is: do fakes exist, and how do I know if it's fake?

This is a question that others have answered before - Dan King in his book and also Rich Catalano before he shut down his site on sake cups. Basically - no, this really isn't a corner of the militaria market that has many fakes. The reason is quite simple - it's not worth it.

Consider the average cup - let's say it's about $10 for a good condition cup. To make a fake cup, one has to get a ceramic...

There is another type of source for these cups - officially given cups. These are cups that are given to individuals from the Japanese government for various reasons, and usually in lieu of some other kind of decoration. Most common among these are cups given for various kinds of charitable donations, including donations to the government for war efforts and other kinds of civilian support for any military action. For example, in a book of all documents about awards, medals, and orders from the Decorations Bureau, which oversees all grants of orders, medals, etc, there is a whole chapter devoted to...

So as I mentioned in the last post, these cups were given for things that someone has done - it's a celebration of finishing something. So, what kind of stuff are they celebrating?

Well, turns out the reasons are as varied as there are cups out there. Granted, the most common reason is obvious - someone finishing their military service. These have a few variations - discharge commemoration (除隊紀念), leaving the service commemoration (退營紀念), or victorious return commemoration (凱旋紀念). The vast majority of military sake cups are related to these three, which celebrate someone finishing their term of service or...