Japanese Stamp Identification Needed - Watarase Kumi ??

This is one stamp that I am not finding anything on when I check the internet, so any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I know it's in poor shape, but I have no idea of it's age at all - the only information on get on Watarase is that there's a train station called Watarase and a river called Watarase. If I search for Watarase and the word stamp - nothing comes up.

I think you have the Watarase right, as northern Japan. The other word "Kumi." is an abbreviation for something, I don't know what. Google says there's no direct translation for "Kumi". This could be a railroad parcel stamp, or a hotel stamp, etc.

Gotta find a Japanese speaker who knows what the abbreviation's for.

The red mark looks like a revenue cancel. Kumi, according to wikipedia, means group or party. My guess it was to raise revenue for traveling or using the river. But that is just a guess.

kumi in Japanese means "group" or "team". Watarase represents a local area in the prefecture of Ueno. The top line of characters translate to read "The Seal of Ueno prefecture Watarase Group. I believe it is a seal of approval placed on a product by this quality control group (team). This practice is still performed by numerous companies. I am certain that most of us have seen similar quality seals on products imported from Asia. It is not a stamp, perhaps not even a cinderella.

Here is a typical "quality control" stamp, from the Japanese sock manufacturers:

Thanks all. Very interesting information. My research was futile, so this information is great. Much appreciated.

fotofila,

The spelling of the kanji is the same as "Ueno" but this one reads "Kozuke". "Kozuke no kuni" means literally "the country of Kozuke" and it is the name for the province during the Shogunate time, the present Gunma prefecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dzuke_Province
(the kanji "kuni" is written in the old format on the stamp, Wikipedia puts the modern one)

Sherri,

I think it's a company seal vignette of Watarase-kumi. I have found a pdf file of the Takasaki Keizai University mentioning about Watarase-kumi.
Here is the fragment of the passage talking about it, Watarase-kumi is a silk producing company founded in Meiji 10. It looks like they have been mainly exporting to the US according to this document.



here is the link for the pdf, it has an english summary at the beginning.
http://www1.tcue.ac.jp/home1/k-gakk...tomizawa.pdf

Thanks all. Very interesting information. My research was futile, so this information is great. Much appreciated.