What are these posters?

September 25, 2010 4:29 PM

Are these awesome posters in Japanese? If so, what do they say? Found them at an estate sale and the guy there thought they were from WWII. I don't think they're that old, but not sure.

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3


The person who sold them to me said that they were from WWII. I don't think they are. I have no clue as to their date because I can't read anything on them.

Any help would be much appreciated.

posted by allthewhile to media & arts (14 answers total)

I would love to have these on my wall, but they aren't from WWII. All three of them were made in China (PRC) in 1983 and document a single rifle made in 1956.
posted by shii at 4:42 PM on September 25, 2010

Yep, definitely not Japanese. Beyond that, couldn't tell you, but they're still interesting posters nonetheless.
posted by Diagonalize at 4:54 PM on September 25, 2010

The headline talks about "7.62" (mm), which is a standard gauge.

To my untrained eye, that sure looks like some version of the
AK-47 assault rifle. China started making their version in 1956.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 5:09 PM on September 25, 2010

More than likely describing a Chinese copy of an AK-47.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:09 PM on September 25, 2010

Does anyone know anything about their context? Would they have been up in some sort of military base? Factory?
posted by allthewhile at 5:12 PM on September 25, 2010

The lower right reads 中国人民解放军总后勤部军械部 = Ordnance Office, Logistics Department, People's Liberation Army. So, it was made for internal consumption by PLA soldiers, possibly so they could learn how to repair their rifles. BTW, you only have pages 1, 2, and 4 of a 5-page info sheet about the gun.
posted by shii at 5:34 PM on September 25, 2010

The title says, "1956-style 7.62 mm Automatic (machine gun) Wall Chart"....the rest is too small for me to read.

Definitely from Mainland China, but that's been said already.
posted by bearette at 6:23 PM on September 25, 2010

I would guess they are from the mid-70s. These posters are pretty common in China and I find them at the Flea once in a while. If you can find a framer who can do a triptych framing, I think you could really raise the value. See if you can find a really nice, colorful chinese military 'valor' poster to put in the center and leave poster 3 out, it's not really as mesmerizing.

Valor posters: http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/pla.html
posted by parmanparman at 6:29 PM on September 25, 2010

Yes, as shii says, it's a wall chart showing you the main component parts (主要诸元) of a PLA Type 56 assault rifle (as noted above, a copy of the AK-47). Wiki seems to think it remained in service until the '80s so parmanparman is likely right about the date of the charts.
posted by Abiezer at 9:10 PM on September 25, 2010

/k/ says that these posters are of a Type 56 assault rifle, first produced in 1956. The drawings depict a milled receiver, which dates them somewhere before the mid-60's, when they started manufacturing stamped receivers.

However, they say that the text in the bottom right corner of the posters reads "Re-published in 1982, by General Logistics Department of PLA." It's probably a sort of training poster for fresh recruits to the PLA.
posted by clorox at 9:27 PM on September 25, 2010

Re-published in 1982 . . .

I did a little research on my own, and this is slightly off. The characters 一九八三, clearly visible in the first image, mean 1983 according to this site. (Wikipedia partially confirms it.)
posted by clorox at 11:48 PM on September 25, 2010

The images on the lower right of the first poster show variants of the foresight and flash suppressor and cleaning attachments ( e.g. How to pull the cleaning rod through the bore with the T shaped handle). The little bottle is probably standard issue cleaning fluid, similar to CLP or Breakfree.
posted by furtive at 9:46 AM on September 26, 2010

The second poster shows you how to strip down the rifle beyond a field strip, which leads me go believe this would be used to train a weapons tech and not your regular infantryman. The fact that the posters detail variations tends to corroborate this.
posted by furtive at 9:48 AM on September 26, 2010

The third poster details the firing piston and spring, the bolt receiver, the bolt and possibly ejection mechanism. This could be used to explain assembly and maintenance as well as to complement instruction on how the components work.
posted by furtive at 9:53 AM on September 26, 2010