A NEW set of commemorative stamps and coins in Japan feature a cousin of the Titan Crane in tribute to the links with Scotland.

The image shows the 107-year-old Giant Cantilever Crane near Dry Dock No 3 in Nagasaki, a structure that survived the atomic bomb in 1945 and still stands today.

Built by Appleby of Glasgow and erected by the Motherwell Bridge Company in 1909 was just one part of the role Scottish engineering had in advancing Japan into an industrial powerhouse in the space of a few decades.

The crane is featured in the coins and stamps issued by Japan to celebrate the winning of World Heritage Status for the Meiji Industrial Revolution site in and around Nagasaki – a place dedicated to that crucial part of Japan’s history in the late 19th and early 20th century, and which includes the abandoned Hashima Island that featured in the James Bond film Skyfall.

Helping win that World Heritage Status was the Scottish Ten project, whose experts digitally documented Nagasaki’s Giant Cantilever Crane and No 3 Dry Dock back in 2014.

The data was used in the Japanese government’s bid to have the monuments recognised by Unesco, which it achieved last year.

The Scottish Ten is a collaboration between specialists at Historic Environment Scotland (HES), experts in 3D visualisation at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and digital heritage organisation CyArk.

Koko Kato, director of the National Congress of Industrial Heritage and special adviser to the Japanese government, said: “We are now excited to commemorate the global significance of these sites through the issue of these special stamps and coins.”