Japan: Postal Cards & Postcards

Wow isn't that great looking? Love it! Now what does it say?

I believe this Japanese post card is from around 1900-1910.

This is about full year sets of Japanese New year's postcards.
There is a New Year's postcard that can be obtained all over the country,  but there are also "Furosato" postcards that can be obtained only in their specific province or at the Tokyo Central Post Office.  A full set is around 50 postcards.  Unlike the national postcard, the provincial postcards are semi-postal--you can see the +3 in the value of this example, which is from Heisei 10 or 1998.  Also, this example is exactly that--it is a "mihon" which is spelled phonetically by the three overprint characters, meaning sample or specimen.  These example postcards were displayed at the local post offices, and the lottery number was null as can be seen in the lower right.  Each provincial postcard has an attractive painting on the other side.  This provincial mihon was from Tokyo, and shows a painting of a Tokyo scene.  The different provincial designs are artistically attractive and fun to collect, but are worth very little if you want to sell them.

Inland post card,issued May 25th,1899.

Domestic postcard,issued June 12th,1875

Dear all,  another observation on the posted example.

The second example posted by ncbucki (as mentioned by salentin) is a domestic 5 Rin postcard issued September 19, Meiji 9 (1876).  This postcard, together with the blue 1 Sen postcard, is called as "Koban postcard" due to the shape of the imprinted part (Koban is an oval shaped ancient Japanese coin).  

The 5 Rin postcard was for reduced fee for city post mail (e.g. delivery within the local limited area).  This reduced fee for city post mail has been discontinued on January 1st, Meiji 16 (1883) and a uniform fee of 1 Sen has been adopted.  In order to manage this change, the post office attached a 5 Rin stamp (Old Koban) on the right-lower corner and sold the postcard as 1 Sen postcard.

On the example by ncbucki one can find a trace of Tokyo large Bota cancel and Double Circle type date stamp, thus it is likely that the affixed 5 Rin stamp has fallen out.   Fortunately I own an example from the same year which still has the Old Koran 5 Rin stamp intact.



The usage of this 5 Rin postcard is very interesting.  As there were very limited need for city post mail in local cities and towns, the usage of 5 Rin postcard before Meiji 9 (1876) is almost limited in large cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe.   So, a 5 Rin postcard bearing cancellations of local cities (especially with "Ki-Ban" cancel = Single circle symbol/character cancellations) is pretty scarce...

Also, even after the fee uprating on January 1st, the postcard fee for city post mail has been kept to 5 Rin as a transient measure until February 20, Meiji 16 (1883).  Therefore, one may find a 5 Rin postcard bearing Large Bota cancel of Tokyo and other large cities WITHOUT the additional 5 Rin franking during Jan 1st and Feb 20, 1883 (which is also pretty scarce).

There are other interesting usage of this 5 Rin postcard, and I would show some examples here in the near future.

-Hironobu

And two more;


Kyoto, Nov. 25, Meiji 14 (1881), Double Circle Datestamp type N3B2, "Ni" delivery.


Kobe, Dec. 30, Meiji 14 (1881), Double Circle Datestamp type N3B2, "To" delivery.

-Hironobu

Hello Werner, thanks for the warm welcome !

You have nice examples of the Tokyo city mail from different period, bearing the Tokyo Negative Cross cancellation and Tokyo Large Bota cancellation, as well as different type of Double Circle type datestamp.  



The postcard on the right has Tokyo Negative Cross cancellation with Tokyo Double Circle type datestamp, type dN3B2, October 20, Meiji 13 (1879), "To" delivery (in Hiragana script).

The postcard on the left has Tokyo Large Bota cancellation with Tokyo Double Circle type datestamp, type N3B3, July 28, Meiji 15 (1882), "Ho" delivery (in Katakana script). 

Negative Cross cancellation has been used in fourteen post offices, between Meiji 8 (1875) and Meiji 14 (1880).  For Tokyo, there are several types (different size & some are worn showing different appearance), but the interesting part is that the associated Double Circle type datestamp also have different types (N1B2, N2B2 and dN3B2), with type N1B2 restricted to early usage.  

Tokyo Large Bota cancellation appeared on September 1st, Meiji 14 (1880) and replaced the Negative cross cancellation.  Tokyo Large Bota cancellation can also associate different types of Double Circle type date stamps (dN3B2 and N3B3).

Koban 5 Rin postcards are so rich in cancellation and datestamp varieties, and this is the reason that it is one of my favorite Japanese postal item :-)

Hope this helps.

- Hironobu

Two-folded post cards, without side inscription. April 1st, Meiji 7 (1874)

Introducing items from my Japan postal stationery stock; two-folded post cards, without side inscription. Issued on April 1st, Meiji 7 (1874).

Two postal cards, 5 Rin and 1 Sen were issued.  This postal card was printed using hand etching (intaglio printing), the same technique as the Cherry Blossom stamps from the same period.  The design of the imprinted stamp is very similar to the Cherry Blossom 1 Sen on foreign paper with syllabics, except the center inscription saying 郵便はがき = post card.

This postal card, together with its precedent issues (Two-folded post card, red frame and Two-folded post card with side inscription), has a unique feature that after the message is written on the reverse side, the post card was folded into half so as to conceal the message from the public whilst being delivered.  There is a five-columned message area and a rather long (half-page) regulation inscription on reverse side.

The post card has Japanese syllabics (Kana 仮名) in the imprinted stamp, and there are 16 different syllabics for 5 Rin postcard, and 33 different syllabics for 1 Sen.  For each syllabic, there exists around 6 to up to 12 plates.   Also, the printing type fonts used for the regulation inscription have extremely wide variety, and also several notable error such as missing character, usage of incorrect type font and inverse font. 

The postal marks (cancellation, datestamp, local post office marks, auxiliary hand stamps etc.) also have wide variation, making this postcard the most interesting postal stationery from the classic Japan era. 


Two folded post card, without side inscription, 5 Rin. JSCA # PC5. Unused, front side after folding.


Two folded post card, without side inscription, 1 Sen. JSCA # PC6. Unused, front side after folding.


More detail to follow...

- Hironobu

Two-folded post cards, without side inscription. April 1st, Meiji 7 (1874)

The front side, unfolded looks like this (apologies for the nasty stain...)


5 Rin.


1 Sen.

The address of the recipient shall be written inside the ornamental frame on the left side.  The frame is also hand engraved, and thus could be used for identifying the different plates. 

- Hironobu

Two-folded post cards, without side inscription. April 1st, Meiji 7 (1874)

An example of beautiful handwriting on the 1 Sen postcard, sent from Kyoto to Osaka, with a local post box auxiliary postmark (called as "Hakoba" postmark) of Nakadachiuri 中立売, Kyoto in red.  Dated August 23, Meiji 7 (1874).  Also with the "missing KE" variation in the regulation inscription. 





- Hironobu

Smauggie, 

As you have mentioned, the printing in black is indeed added to show the sender's address, Mr. Shin-ichiro Nakajima of Sho-Bi-Sha company, Tokyo.  

The printing on the reverse shows a rabbit writing the company's name, "Sho-Bi-Sha" 尚美社 at the Kakizome (link to Wikipedia) , which is a Japanese term (literally meaning "first writing")  for the first calligraphy written at the beginning of the year.  

1951 (Showa 26) was a year of "rabbit" in the japanese ganzhi (or sexagenary cycle), 干支,  thus the picture of rabbit.    

Nice and cute one, I really like it 

- Hironobu

Thank you for that information Hironobu.  I was going to say that the rabbit design looked like a woodcut.  It was the reverse side of the card that attracted me to it.  If it had been blank I wouldn't have given it a second thought.  

Japan postal cards - with paper tags.

The 1 Sen Koban blue postcard has 8 (!) paper tags attached, telling us the journey of the post card; 

- Posted at Kyoto on Jan 22, Meiji 26 and arrived Kameoka PO on Jan 23 (two date stamps on the front). Addressed to Mr. Tomita (?), working at a junior school in Kameoka,

- Kameoka PO couldn't find the recipient at the original address (Tag 1), thus returned the post card to Kyoto PO (Tag 2), 

- Kyoto PO mentioned that the recipient shall be there (Tag 3) , so the post card resent to Kameoka PO and was asked for further investigation on Jan 23 (Tag 4), received by Kameoka PO on Jan 24 (Tag 5),

- Kameoka PO tried again but without success (Tag 6), so returned the post card to Kyoto PO on Jan 24 (Tag 7),

- Kyoto PO has admitted the absence of recipient, so the post card returned to the sender on Jan 24 (Tag 8). 



- Hironobu