Hooray Able To Post Again - Japanese Page

Despite no help forthcoming from anywhere re my problem getting the upload link here, I have found a way. I have used firefox, and now it works.
So, here is a question?

japanese revenues on a document?



When I bought this at a stamp fair, I thought it quite odd.
It carries what appear to be a tobacco duty revenue, a patent medicine revenue, and a reversed document revenue.
What do you think? Does that make it a fake?

It's on interesting paper, and what does that say?

It's good to be back.

Telcson

Glad to see you back Telcson.

The stamps you have scanned are definitely revenue. I am not certain, but, I believe these are some kind of 'medicine' tax stamps. The large stamp is a tobacco tax one. I am not sure why medicine and tobacco tax stamps are used on the same document, unless the tobacco, for whatever reason, was for medicinal purposes??

My information is from my reprint copy of the "1915 Forbin Revenue Catalogue".

Both types of stamps were issued in 1883. I hope that this helps?

Chimo

Bujutsu

That's right, Bujutsu,

my information is that the two square stamps, although similar, are a medicine revenue and a document revenue[shoken inshi]. I have singular specimens of each type.
the paper is like tissue paper and you can see through it. The scan is probably upside down. Sorry.

Would they use tobacco medicinally anyway ? It seems odd to us today.
Telcson

Hi, Telcson! Congratulations on getting your image posted! I collect some Japan, but knowing the purposes on these stamps on document is beyond my knowledge. And I can read some Japanese, but old handwritten Japanese is also way beyond my skill set.

There are a couple of people who frequent this board who may be able to help, including one (unechan) who seems to know a lot about these stamps, and is, I believe, a native Japanese speaker. However, one thing that would help is if you could rotate the image 180 degrees, either by editing the original post or by reposting the image. (At the moment, I'm afraid it's upside down.)

Good luck with this! I'll be interested in learning more as the information unfolds.

-- Dave

There we go right
It's the right way up now.




Telcson

Terrific! Thanks very much!

-- Dave

Hi,

The stamps on this document are, as Telcson has mentioned, tobacco tax revenue (8 rin), medicine tax revenue (2 rin) and document tax revenue (1 sen), which makes the total franking of 2 sen (note; 10 rin=1 sen).

Detailed information on the revenues are as follows:

1) tobacco tax revenue: 8 rin yellow-green, imperforated, 1883.

[Barefoot 2006] Japan Tobacco Tax # 10
[Forbin 1915] Tabac # 9B
[Shimomura 1981] Tobacco Duty # RA80
[Furuya 2011] Tobacco # 57

2) medicine tax revenue: 2 rin dull light blue, perforated.
(early issues with perf. 9-10 on 1883; later issue with perf 12-13 on 1886)

[Barefoot 2006] Japan Medicine Tax # 2
[Forbin 1915] Medecine # 2B
[Shimomura 1981] Medicine # RA165
[Furuya 2011] Medicine # 119 (perf 9-10) or # 119A (perf 12-13)

3) document tax revenue: 1 sen orange, perforated.
(early issues with perf. 10-11 on 1884; later issue with perf 12-13 on 1892)

[Barefoot 2006] Japan General Revenues # 16
[Forbin 1915] Effets de Commerce et Quittances, # 23
[Shimomura 1981] Documentary, Typographed documentary issue, # RA61
[Furuya 2011] Documentary, 5th issue, # 37(perf 10-11) or # 37A (12-13)


Reading old handwritten Japanese is indeed a hard task for a modern Japanese guy like me, and I definitely have to ask my aunt (a well-experienced calligrapher!) for the detail...

What I have deciphered up to now is as follows;

- The company chops and the red inscription on the right says that this document is issued by export section of Mizushima company, located at 1-12, Hon-machi, Tokyo.

- The first character on the right may be "watashi", which means "to give", "to hand something out", so the document should probably be a sort of receipt or a bill.

- The writing on the left of the stamps could be read as "ichi kin jyu en nari", which simply means "10 yen".

- The writing on the 2nd column from left could be read as "April 10th". No information on the year of issue.

- The lower characters on the leftmost column could be read as "Mizushima San-e-mon", probably the name of the person in charge (of the Mizushima company).

The usage of dedicated tax stamps (tobacco, document, medicine, etc.) as general revenue stamps have been legalized through Imperial order No. 41, Meiji 31 (1898), together with the announcement of issuance of general revenue stamps. The total franking of 2 sen for a 10 yen bill corresponds to the amended taxation law of Meiji 32 (1899), so the usage of the three stamps on this document is consistent with the regulation and is legal.

Thanks for posting the interesting document, I really enjoyed the puzzle !

-- Hironobu

Some more explanations on why the tobacco and medicine revenues are used on bill;

The Imperial order No.17 of Meiji 31 (1898) announced the documentary, tobacco, judicial, medicine or registration revenue stamps to be replaced by newly issued general revenue stamps.

But as for the transitional (interim) measures, the order also announced that these revenue stamps with specific purpose can be used as general revenue stamps for a while.

Thus after 1898 (Meiji 31), one may find different types of revenues on a document which has nothing to do with the purpose of the revenues !

-- Hironobu

Wow!
Thanks Hironobu,

it's nice to know that the document is kosher.
There's now something for explanatory notes for the album page
alongside the document itself.
This was the first actual document I've ever come across of this kind,
and it's so good to get a feel of what it all means


Telcson

Great information Hironobu

This clarifies it a lot.

Many thanks.

Chimo

Bujutsu