Exonumia: Japanese or Korean Pin-Back; please help with translation?

23.8mm diameter, ~1,4mm thickness, plain edge, 5.2 grams, brass.
2 crossed anchors in ribboned wreath, 5-petal blossom at top: face/obverse.
7 characters (4 & 3) adjacent pin: back/reverse.



Nicely made; I don't believe it's contemporary.
Any help gratefully accepted, and acknowledged...Thanks! wlw

 

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Not Korean. Also pretty sure it isn't Japanese. Trying to find the characters now

 

That would leave...Chinese? Perhaps others, but I'm unable to differentiate between any of them. Thank you...wlw

 

yeah im 99.9% it is Chinese. My Chinese is limited at best. I'm working on it haha

 

This should be a Japanese military medal with Kanji (Chinese) characters. Back side said: “Yokosuka Naval Factory”. Front characters said “hard working” and “continue”. Not sure exact meaning, but could mean a medal for a long-term worker in naval military factory.

 

Perfect work attendance

 

Excellent...Thanks, both of you! I would like to hope the pin is from no later than 1945...but that seems a reach. More work to do here, and results, if any, will be added to this when available. wlw

 

Oops! I initially missed that happy-collector pegged it: "This should be a Japanese military medal..." (Cited from: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ex...se-help-with-translation.336406/#post-3450864).

So: Imperial Japanese Navy! They went outta business in the summer of 1945. I'll show it on a WWII forum; with any luck, it'll have a wee bit of rarity and be therefore somewhat desirable. Might be one for the Bay. Warren

 

The sakura flower on the top heavily suggests that it's Japanese. Some of the Kanji are likely archaic.

 

I was thinking maybe something from Manchuria but I was having a helluva time finding any of the characters.

 

The characters are a bit “scripted”, to make them look more artistic. But if you have the original and scripted characters side by side, you can see they are the same.

 

Hopefully an WWII forum can guide you to the right direction.

 

Yes, I know they are stylized, but this pin probably predates the Toyo Kanji which set the "official" list of Kanji to 1,850 in 1946, which was then replaced by the Joyo Kanji in 1981 and increased to 2,150 in 2010. It's often hard to keep it all straight. Perhaps "archaic" was too strong of a word. Maybe "pre-Toyo" would have worked better? In any case, it's all fascinating.