WristScan

Lépine
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Not Everyone's Cup of Tea, But Boom

First of all, this will take some explanation as to what this collection is about. Since it is quite apparent that I have an interest in WW2 aviator watches, it should come as no surprise that I am also interested in war planes. There are a lot of scrap pieces of aluminum and steel marketed on eBay etc claiming to be something they are not. Well one day a collection came up of indisputable items that are parts of Imperial Japanese WW2 war birds. No so called letters of authentication are necessary for these. They are in fact the serial number plates that came from various Imperial Japanese Navy fighters, reconnaissance, interceptors, and dive bombers. Two are in fact prototypes planes. The serial numbers and model, manufacturer and gross weight is on some of these tags. I took them to the Chino Air Museum which has one of the largest collection of Japanese war birds in the United States. It is famous for the restoration of one of a handfull of flying Mitsubishi Zeros and also the last Mitsubishi Raiden and Yokosuka Suisei. The prototype or experimental aircraft serial number plates are for single aircraft. IJN when testing aircraft only made one prototype at a time for each new model. So there can only be one of these and interestingly, the aircrafts were painted bright yellow/orange so the aircraft could be observed and located. Below airwork is for prototype model J2M2, which is an earlier version than mine which is J2M3, the last prototype of generation three. Can you spot the serial number plate on the bottom row and second from the right?

The museum representative I spoke with was shocked at the number of serial number plates (Data Plates) I had collected which include Mitsubishi Zero Fighter and a Nakajima Zero Fighter.

In vintage aircraft world, there is a long continuum of 100% original war planes to 100% replica. Somewhere in between more towards to far end of original war planes is an aircraft with some parts of the original ww2 plane and the original data plates. These data plates would be worth a small fortune to a person that has a partial wreckages since the finished aircraft made brand new today with these data plates and the landing gear from the original aircraft would make the aircraft legally an original WW2 aircraft. These are 5 of the most iconic IJN aircrafts. The round badges are arsenal worker badges from WW2 where the aircrafts and ships were built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. One you can clearly see is also a Mitsubishi Aircraft Factory worker badges from WW2. That badge comes from the factory that built the Mitsubishi Zero Fighter. Two factory badges come from Yokosuka Naval Technical Arsenal which was the equivalent of the Lockheed Skunkworks (basically the R&D center of the Japanes Imperial Navy Aviation program). One factory badge is from Kure, where the famous Yamato was designed and built (my ancestor was a naval architect at that base designing war ships.)



And Below are Two great examples of IJN Longines Weems made for the Imperial Japanese Navy aircrew.