This is a very rare antique Japanese military sake cup, decorated with a helmet, some cherry blossoms, and a pair of flags. One of these flags is the very rarely seen (my first, in fact) flag of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, distinguished by the yellow banner on top of the regular flag that reads "Resist the Communists for Peace", a rare variant of the standard phrase that normally read "Peacefully resist the Communist and Establish the Nation". The phrase on the top of the cup reads "China Incident Participation Commemoration". Most of the cups with Chinese flags tend to be the early puppet government flags of the five color bars variety. Cups featuring this later version that was only used from 1940 onwards are very rare, and the pennant was dropped in 1943. You can read about the flag here. The exterior of the cup has three shells as the base with the characters "Loyalty and Bravery" embossed on the side.

Condition: One chip at 1 o'clock

Size: 2" across