J00955 (IJA/IJN) CASED PILOT'S GOGGLES. A pair of standard issue, army or navy "cat’s eye" flying goggles, in use from the late 1930s until the end of the war, with a velvet cleaning cloth, in their original storage box. The oval storage box, which is 5" across at its widest point and stands approximately 3" tall, is made of cardboard and is covered with brown-colored paper. The cover is connected to the body by a woven, olive drab cord, which passes through the blackened grommets to either side of the cover, and are tied off beyond similar grommets to either side of the body of the box. To the cover is the silver foil stamp design of a seven-pointed star against two concentric circles, with stylized wings extending to either side, and four kanji characters beneath. The two characters to the left ("ko-ku") together translate as "aviation" or "flight," and the two to the right ("gan-kyo") as "spectacles" or "glasses." Within the box are the flight glasses and a 7 1/2" square cleaning cloth. The off-white cloth has, printed to its non-velvet side, a repetition of the design to the cover of the box, with a horizontal row of ten kanji characters beneath it, and another row of five characters beneath that. The goggles are comprised of clear lenses within reddish-brown, lacquered aluminum frames, which are sewn, through the pin-holes in the flanges extending from the frames, to padded, dark brown velveteen cushioning. A series of six small ventilation holes may be seen to the tops of each lens frame, and nine are to their bottoms. A section of brown silk is sewn across the nose area to the interior. Either end of its 1 1/8" wide, doubled, medium brown, elasticized head strap is wrapped and sewn around a rectangular metal loop, through whose other sides pass sections of dark brown pigskin, which themselves are wrapped and fixed by grommets around the metal rings attached to either side of the lens frames. There are two blackened metal sliding buckles to the strap, allowing for its adjustment. The goggles exhibit light age soiling, but no wear, evidently having been unissued. The cleaning cloth is more noticeably soiled. The edges of the lid of the box have separated from their top, but are included, and the base of the box is beginning to separate in a similar fashion.

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