Thread: Hi from JoeBirmingham, USA - OLD BEAKER ??

Good point. But since this was a gift between fellow countrymen it seems odd. You have been a great help. With your kind assistance I have gleaned enought information to list the cup on ebay. If you have a minute (and are interested) you might want to check me for accuracy. Also, I gave you a information byline. Shortcut Antique Sterling 1926 RUSSIAN BEAKER CUP Japanese Gift - eBay (item 180694332357 end time Jul-17-11 18:34:09 PDT)

Also, a friend of my sister wrote me and suggested "the first line of Russian that your friend sites below (HA DOBRYIU .....) means “to the beloved memory of the regiment of Daito (name of leader), followed by the names of his warriors." What do you think? Thanks, JoeBirmingham

P.S. That map in my previous post is from the wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War, and the reddish areas represent what was historically "Manchuria."

The Trans-Siberian Railroad passed through the city of Harbin (in the dark-red area) on its way to Vladivostok, and Japan offered to let Russia keep "Northern Manchuria" as far south as Harbin (thus preserving Russian rail access to Vladivostok), if Russia were willing to let Japan have all of "Southern Manchuria" (including the Dalian peninsula, and Port Arthur). Oh, and the Japanese also wanted the entire Korean peninsula, too.

However, Vladivostok's harbor freezes in the winter, while the Port Arthur harbor is usable year-round -- so the Russians had no interest in Japan's "peaceful partition of Manchuria."

And so, in the face of such unreasonable stubbornness from the Russian side, the peace-loving Japanese had no choice but to launch a sneak attack on the Russian Navy at Port Arthur.

(American historians today might say that Port Arthur was a "beta test" version of Pearl Harbor, while Russian historians might say that Pearl Harbor was "Port Arthur 2.0")

Wow, great information. You must have a genuine interest in history. I will pas this on to the rest of the group helping me translate the cup's inscription. I have received some great interest to the cup via ebay. They are probably family members who know their ancestors were in the area. I may eventually get some of the story from them also. I will let you know. Thanks, again. Joe

Oh, thanks for the byline on ebay, and good luck with the auction!

By the way, after looking at the actual photo of the engraving, and doing a few minutes of Googling, I can say with confidence that ALL the names are Japanese. In your top post on this thread, you had made a couple typos in the Russian -- so that "Kondo" came out as "Kodo", which is a Japanese word, but is not used as a family name. But when I did Google searches with the corrected spellings, it turned out that they're all common Japanese surnames.

So you might want to edit the spellings on your ebay listing: "From Hayashi, Yakushiji, Iwahashi, Nakayama, Arisaka, and Kondo".