Bidspirit auction | Mixed Lot: Chinese Red Swastika

Mixed Lot: Chinese Red Swastika Society Medal, 1961 May Day Badge, and Religious Medal - A star-shaped medal with a red and black enameled central roundel bearing a swastika emblem and Chinese characters, suspended from a rectangular bar with a red fabric ribbon, believed to be bronze. Alongside it is a small gilt-toned badge with a red enamel flag reading ”1.MAI 1961” over a globe motif, and a round medal in what appears to be silver-toned metal depicting a robed religious figure holding a staff, with a small suspension loop. The star medal relates to the World Red Swastika Society, a Chinese charitable and relief organization active in the early-to-mid twentieth century that used the swastika as an ancient symbol of good fortune, unrelated to the German National Socialist emblem. The May Day badge commemorates International Workers' Day 1961, a date widely observed with civic badges across Eastern Bloc and communist-affiliated states, while the religious medal appears to be a devotional or pilgrimage piece depicting a saint. The Red Swastika Society, affiliated with the Chinese religious-philanthropic movement Daoyuan, was founded in the early 1920s and became one of China's largest relief organisations, providing disaster relief, medical aid, and refugee assistance through the war-torn decades of the 1920s-40s before its activities were curtailed under Communist rule after 1949. Its emblem drew on the swastika's ancient use across Asian traditions as a symbol of auspiciousness, entirely independent of its later appropriation in Europe. The 1961 May Day badge reflects the annual state-sponsored observance of International Workers' Day across the Eastern Bloc, when such badges were mass-produced and distributed to mark civic parades and labour commemorations. The devotional medal is typical of pilgrimage or personal faith objects produced widely in Catholic Europe, worn or carried as an expression of protection or veneration.