Hideaki Nakano Local Post Cover

Hideaki Nakano was an philatelic cover artist between 1983 and 1988. He produced a large number of different cover designs. Some of these (as shown below) were in a 3 D "pop-up" fashion. This cover was issued at AAPEX (Ann Arbor, Mich) on November 13, 1983. This item was from a quantity released in a 40 cover total.

This is my first HN Local Post item. This was # 154, and item # 3 out of the 40 issued!

I think this would make a great side collection. I will have to search for a few more. Enjoy.



An additional note: He had a personal Perfin pattern "H.N." listed in the Perfin US catalog as pattern H126.5P. He used the perfin on stamps on most of his covers.

Interesting. I am unfamiliar with Japanese so I cannot tell from the markings: would this be considered an event cover, or was it an FDC?

This was an event cover. The Japanese marking is the family hand stamp of the artist.

Here is a link to a site that shows a bunch of this indiviuals work:

http://swapmeetdave.com/Stamps/FDC/Nakano.htm

I saw a couple of covers there that would have appealed to me, but they are all sold. I checked Mccusker, but he only has 5, none of them for stamps that I collect. But I will have to keep an eye open for these. Maybe I'll find one one day that I like.

Hideaki Nakano is still active and well known in the Detroit area. He had a cachet makers bourse table at the Ann Arbor show last November.

At the APS Chicago show, I came across a large number of Nakano covers in the $1 bins. Most were more recent and did not have the nice cachets shown in the link above. I was not familiar with him and only picked out a few that caught my eye. I thought he did an artful job with the layout of the very large Pacific 97 FDC. There was also a multi-date FDC of the variable value stamps from the 1990s, which included an HK Local Post on the back. Both included his customary HN perfin.

This thread has been dormant for several years. Does anyone know whether Nakano is still alive and active?

Define "nice cover". Honestly I prefer the ones you just posted over the ones in the link. Simplicity, for me at least, is key. I appreciate your renewing this thread! What fun to learn from our ancestors, us of 6 years past.

I'm just going to throw my opinion out there, which is all it is -- an opinion. I think some of the covers Nakano created were not at all nice. On occasion, he took some fairly historic covers and added modern first day cancels that I think deface the original object.

Here's one example I found on Ebay. A hand-signed, limited edition event cover from 1940, that Nakano repurposed as a Little Mermaid FDC. To me this does not improve the collectibility of the cover, it detracts.

I don't feel this way about most of his work, but I've seen it done on a few other items that made me cringe.

Wow!! The audacity to even add his own perfin to the Little Mermaid stamp. This is really interesting actually— great addition to the post. I have to agree, it definitely detracts. But then again, consider how many hundreds of these covers must've been made. At least this one is a bit more unique? What is a stamp but art?

Rather than a detraction, perhaps it should be seen as a rather brilliant commentary on the ability of humanity to trivialize and commercialize the natural world. What Nakano may be telling us is that the idea of a "sea floor post office" set up to commemorate the Penny Black and not based on a genuine social need was a crass and commercial exploitation of human interest in the ocean, and its natural successor in the advancement of anti-intellectualism is The Little Mermaid.

Here is a Nakano first-day cover from 2014.

My thoughts exactly - well said... There is no doubt in my mind that this is an artist at work. Art provokes and causes controversy oftentimes. The cover above (Booth) is a good example of this. Some will find it highly offensive. Some will appreciate the word play at work (booth).

All will take notice...

John

His covers were advertised and sold weekly in Linn's until his 9/11 cachet cover. That cover was artistic/appalling and his ad never appeared again in Linn's. I have never been able to find a picture of that cover again.

I think his niche (if we can call it that) is being outrageous and over the top...

Else why TEN TIMES BETTER THAN ORDINARY CACHETS printed on the Booth cover?

Not my cup of tea, but hey - some people probably like the "in your face" style...



John

River of the Monks pays tribute to Nakano ay? @Redwoodrandy you're just going to drop the most tantalizing reference without including a picture!? My mind is spinning at what crass genius he printed up to commemorate the day. @cjpalermo Well put and I appreciate the artistic deconstruction as opposed to one merely centered on the concept of stampery. We should all try our hands at cachet making and see how it turns out: Grandma Moses started painting at 78 so you old folks have no excuse not to at least try!

cjpalermo, I bow to your superior irony. :-) My take is that art is one thing and collecting is another. I don't have a problem when they intersect, except if one damages the other.

Regarding Nakano himself, I think he died sometime in 2020, but I haven't found an obituary, only references to the "late" Mr. Nakano.