J001257 RED CROSS MEMBERSHIP MEDAL. A 1 1/8" diameter, struck silver or silver alloy medal (as they were made of before the end of the second world war), with a clasp to its top through which is fed a suspension ring for its ribbon. To the obverse face of the medal is what appears to be a peacock (the "ho-o") above a Geneva cross, with bamboo branches arching up either side, and three-lobed flowering Paulownias to the base of each branch. To the reverse are two horizontal lines of stylized kanji characters, the uppermost reading, from right to left, "Meiji era twenty-first year" (1888 - the year of the establishment of these awards), and to the line underneath, also reading from right to left, "Japanese Red Cross Society." To the reverse of the clasp for the suspension ring is embossed the "Iroha" syllabary character for "i," here used as a mint mark. The medal’s ring is fed through a hook to the reverse of a vertical, silver alloy band, which the ribbon passes through. That the ribbon, which is red, watered silk with two silver stripes to either edge, is arranged in a horizontal bow shape rather than straight and vertically, determines the medal as having been worn by a woman. The ribbon is lightly age dulled, but clean, its vertical band has age darkening to its recesses, and the medal itself has the dark patina of old silver to it.

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