Soldier cups
A wide variety of soldiers can be found on cups and bottles. These are not exactly rare, but
they exist in fewer numbers than the more common patterns. The majority of soldier cups
have a stamped pattern that is later colored in. Sometimes the coloring is sloppy and runs out
of the lines. Others have been colored carefully, and they look quite nice.

In the following pictures are some hand-painted and some stamped soldier cups. The latter
are probably from the 1930s. You can see that many of the soldiers are in the same basic
pose. Different backgrounds are used, as are different phrases and poems.

The hand-painted soldier cups come from an earlier, more leisurely era, when the military
was esteemed and people had time to paint nice cups. These would have been more
expensive than the stamped cups.
Very interesting Japanese soldier cup with the
Manchurian flag. Manchukuo was the puppet state of
Japan from 1932-45. Lots of Manchurian flag cups
around, but this is the first I have seen with a soldier on it,
too.  
Here is the most common pose. There are variations in the soldiers, so these were made
from different stamps. The backgrounds vary, too.  
Make sure you check out the other soldier cup pages (see links to the upper right). There are
lots of great hand-painted cups there and a few photo cups, too.
Single soldier with winter wear