This is an antique Japanese military decorative vase. The vase is made of cast iron, with a band of three submarines around the thickest part of the vase itself. The words under one of the submarine is "China Incident Participation Commemoration" "Showa 13th Year" and "9th Submarine Division". From what I can find, the 9th division consisted of the I-123 and I-124 submarines and (at that time they were numbered I-23 and I-24). They were attached to the 4th Fleet, which patrolled the East China Sea. 

It is exceedingly rare to find items related to submarines in any capacity, since there were so few of them generally in the IJN and the crews on them were small, further reducing the number of items that would come out of them. This is I think only the second time I'm selling anything that specifically names any submarine division.

Condition: Excellent - as it's cast iron, the interior is somewhat rusty. There's some white wax at the bottom, but otherwise the vase is in quite good shape

Size: 6" tall x 6" at the widest