Asian Cinderella Or Revenue - Ideas?

I have quite a number of revenue and Cinderellas to go through but this one has piqued my interest. It's very small (17mmx12mm approx) and repaired. Any information would be nice. Thank you.

Hello Steve123,

Assuming it�fs from Japan, the Kanji characters could be read as �gMae Ken�h or �gZen Ken�h.

This may mean �"pre-inspection�", or an inspection chop/seal of somebody who has �"Mae�" in his family name (e.g. Maeda, Maeyama, Maebashi etc.). The font used is rather old fashioned, so I suspect it to be a product inspection seal before WW2, but also would like to see other thoughts...

- Hironobu

Has the typical look of a Japanese inspection sticker which could be found on dishware, decorative things, you name it. And they would be on (relatively) mass-produced items. So it would be difficult if not impossible to determine what it came from (a challenge for somebody, perhaps).

Judging from the small size and the simplicity of the design (i.e. no company or association name, which is often found in product inspection label), this might be a "Ken-In-Shi" (literally means "certification chop paper") affixed to the colophon (or back matter) of Japanese book. This certification chop paper was used to control the authenticity of the publication and the royalty that the author receives. Here's some examples;

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/spin-edition/200711

- Hironobu