Japanese Translation Please.

Japan Translation Please
Perhaps a Precis enough for an Album Page?
Thanks

Tax revenue "Shunyu Inshi" 1898-1909
5 Rin with Plum Flower "ume"
also used in China, Korea, and Manchuria.

I'd like a brief explanation of the mutilated stationery.

We need to wait for TonyMac to come along, but it looks to me like this was a product wrapper, on whose contents was paid a 5-rin tax. (At one point in time, there were a whole bunch of things that had a special tax.)

One thing you could do to help, Rod, is either post the image a second time, rotated 180°, or else just post the lower half of the image again, but rotated 180°. The top half is correctly oriented, but the bottom half is upside down. (That's most of why I think it's a wrapper of something. (medicine? a good-luck fortune? -- just wild guesses, based on nothing ...))

-- Dave

This is in old Japanese, which is always a headache.

However, Philatarium is right on both counts: it does look to be a medicine wrapper, and the second half is inverted. The top half appears to deal with efficacy and dose/how to use.

The purple handstamp at left of the top half says that it was priced at 5 Sen.

Thank you gentlemen.

A Medicine wrapper, not a fabulous detailed cover, as I thought. :)
Appreciated.

I'm always relieved when Tonymacg weighs in and clears up my mere speculation. Thanks, Tony!

Dave, I simply know you recognised the

Tony, you may be giving me more credit than I deserve. In point of fact, although I know what both of those characters are, I'm sure I'm missing it, but I don't see them appearing on the wrapper, and I'm not sure what they mean when put together in a compound. (I suppose there's an unintentional medicinal pun there, too. (compound))

For others: the first character means "medicine"; the second means "gate". Sometimes you can logically put them together and discern the meaning; sometimes you can't.

(I did learn that that second character can also be the counter for cannons! (Who knew?!)

Well, Dave, the two characters are in the second (inverted) half, and the second of the characters appears in the simplified form. more often used in cursive writing ...

Thanks, Tony -- as soon as you pointed that out, I saw them!

I will admit that when I worked in the corporate world here in the US, it was a great advantage to be able to read upside-down (while looking at a document that someone was working on across from me), but I'm reasonably confident I would never, ever, be able to develop that skill for Japanese. :-)

Hi, I am afraid this may be a sort of a too belated reply, but would like to post the full (not perfect though) translation of the packet; please enjoy the dazzling advertisement in the good old days :-) (and apologies for the bad english translation...)





Some comments on the revenue itself. This is a 5-Rin general tax revenue (possibly 1898 issue, Shimomura RA 236), used to pay the medicine tax of 10% (5-sen retail price x 10% = 5 Rin). Before 1898, medicine tax was paid by the specialized medicine tax revenue, and in 1898 all the special tax revenues (medicine, document, tobacco, registration etc.) have been unified and replaced by the general revenue stamps. Thus we can say that this medicine was sold after 1898.

Cheers from unechan / Osaka, Japan

Hello unechan,
I have been following your posts, which are absolutely fabulous.
Thanks for the extended explanation, which I shall place on my album page.
You know your business.
Cheers from Australia.

I like your method of placing text on the black background,
I am envious, are you willing to share how you do that, please?

Hello rod222,
I just love my business here ! :-)

About the text on the images, I am using a presentation application called Keynote which works on Mac. I paste the image of the postal item on a blank slide page with black background, add text using textboxes in white font, and then convert the whole slide to JPG image and upload it. You can of course use any sort of such application such as Powerpoint on Windows PC. For more simple image/text combination I use the Mac app Preview (something equivalent to Acrobat but with limited options) to edit the image and add text, arrows etc.

Cheers,

unechan

Dear Tony and Dave, some follow-up to your "medicine" and "gate" discussion :-)



It is always a nightmare even for us japanese to decipher those cursive handwriting from Meiji era, and I am still learnig and practicing a lot, especially with the rather challenging items occasionally appearing in this forum (and you konw, they're often upside down :-) It is like solving a puzzle, and I do love the game !

Cheers, unechan@Osaka, Japan

Thank you unechan.

Are you able to assist with the ID of these 2 items / Revenue /Label
1 yen with Burelage

On the label, any relevance to the Vignette of branches of Fir?

Thanks.

Dear rod222,

Let me start from the second one which is rather straightforward; it is a general revenue stamp of either;

- 1909 issue, white (normal) paper, without watermark (Forbin "Effets de Commerce et Quittances" 47 (on page 548), Shimomura RA250), or

- 1915 issue, granite paper, with "Meiji" watermark (horizontal zigzag) (Shimomura RA 266. Note that the Forbin catalogue was issued on 1915 so this revenue is not listed)

so please have a look at the paper and watermark for identification.

---------

The first label is not a revenue stamp but should be a label/seal issued by a gem stone store, Honjyo-Nishiki-Ishi-Do(h)-Ten located at Honjyo city (now a part of Akita prefecture) to certificate the quality of the "Nishiki-Ishi" gem stone, showing that its quality is the best.

And here comes the mystery tour ;-)

1) The small inscription in the bottom could be read as (from right to left);

"Hon-Jyo Nishiki-Ishi-Do(h) Ten In"

which means "the seal of Honjyo Nishiki-ishi Store".

2) Honjyo is a name of a town located at Akita, Japan. More information here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honj#333;,_Akita

3) "Nishiki-Ishi" means " (Japanese) brocade stone", and is a name used to call the special gemstones produced from Aomori prefecture. Beautiful stone, which seems to be a composite gemstone including jasper, agate and other minerals. A beautiful example taken from this Website;

http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~gutenta...iki_kind.htm



4) Both Aomori prefecture and Akita prefecture is in the Tohoku area, the northern part of mainland Japan. The two prefectures are next to each other.

5) The chinese character on the top is "Matsu", meaning pine (not fir). The images (both surrounding and at the centre) are pine branches.

6) In Japan, we often use the combination of pine, bamboo and plum (pronounced as "Sho-Chiku-Bai") as a symbol of good luck and hope. You can see the three characters on the label of Japanese sake Sho-Chiku-Bai, and also the design of the three plants;



A fine example of the decorated fan depicting the three plants (taken from Web);



7) "Sho-Chiku-Bai" is also used for ordering the quality of a product; "pine" the best, "bamboo" the second and "plum" the third. (In this case the three characters should be pronounced as "Ma-tsu", "Ta-Ke" and "U-Me"). It is a kind of a polite way of saying "Top quality", "middle level" and "normal". An example of a menu in a "Unagi" (grilled eel) restaurant (also taken from Web, with notifications by unechan);



(extreme caution if you are traveling in Japan: in some restaurants the order could be in the opposite manner; plum the best, bamboo the next and pine the third. Better confirm the order by checking the price; It is very very confusing, indeed.)

8) ... So to summarize, this label is issued by the gem stone store "Honjyo Nishiki-Ishi Doh Ten", located at Honjyo, Akita, specialized in Nishiki-Ishi (speciality from neighboring Aomori prefecture), and should have been attached to the gem stone itself (or maybe the written certificate) to guarantee that the quality of the stone is of top rank.

Sorry for the rather long post, but I really enjoyed the puzzle again :-)

Regards, unechan@Osaka, Japan

Dear Unechan,
what a fabulous post, you are a genius. Love it.

I had investigated Forbin, and noted it was not listed, hence my post.

I shall draft my album pages and give you due attribution.

I'll give them both a gentle soak, I don't like to straighten perforation teeth
dry, as they often snap off.

These types of stamps / labels lie back of book for generations,
and suddenly their magic is unlocked!
Well done you.