Help Center For Japanese Stamps

Japan : Biota (Excluding Fauna)
Not exhaustive.

Unidentified in Scott, Butterfly?
Any lepidoptera collectors to ID?
Update : Google: Sasakia charonda (National Butterfly of Japan)
"Great Purple Emperor"
"oh murasaki"
Sc#887A 1966 80 yen, definitive.

Netherlands Indies under Japanese occupation.
Sc#N31 1943 CV: 50c used $15

Japan Stamp Design : Third Series
Scott Types A34, A35, and A36.

Scott Type A35 5 sen (5 Varieties excluding perf guaging)

Scott Type A49
1922
(Scott again lists 1922 stamps after 1930)
Old die 19 x 22.5mm

I am quite fond of this innovative design, blocks of vignettes, building the composite, with clearly visible value tablets.
Mondrianesque.

1923 Earthquake Emergency
Sc# 179 -187

Just For the record.
Recent sales today
Japanese Rice Revenue Stamps Sold $80 AUD

Japan Stamp Collection
My opinion modest to average Mint and used
Advertised as "hundreds of stamps" Opening Price 1c
Sold $315 + $100 postage (if applicable) AUD

4th Change
Sc#257 1937
1st in a new definitive series of 19 stamps 1937-1945.

Sc#186 Earthquake Provisional. Assumed Fiscal Use
1. paper fragment attached on back unremovable, stamp "No Gum" as issued
Any sort of mucilage could have been employed.
2. Fragment is punctured ?? +"BC" assume receipt of some sort.
3. First ever example in my collection of a Violet CDS strike
(assuming postal equipment also lost in the fire) emergency cancellers and ink used.



Sc#195 1926
First ever example in my collection of a "Ladder" type Postmark
Assuming parcel usage
Any idea of date of Postmark ?

Scenery Set 1926 and 1937
(Set of 5 oblong stamps)

Rodney: First, I've been meaning to thank you for preparing these displays that you've been sharing. I really appreciate them. They're great summaries. (And I often learn something new!)

As for your comments or questions about possible fiscal use of the 10-sen earthquake stamp. I'm not an expert, but I think it still might be a postal cancel, for Kobe. Since it's using the Roman alphabet, it might well be for a foreign destination, and I'm pretty sure Kobe (port city) would still have been handling foreign mail at that time. From what I have heard over time is that purple cancels are more sought after and command a bit of a premium (especially for a full strike).

With regards to the 6-sen Yomei Gate stamp, again, because it's a Roman cancel, usually the Western dating conventions apply (although I'm not sure that's always 100% true). So, I'm pretty confident that the year is 1933, and my guess is that they went dd-mm-yy (like most places except the US), to make the date October 6, but it's always possible that I'm wrong and that it's June 10.

That cancel, by the way, is a roller cancel, and was/is often used on large envelopes and parcels.

Thanks again for the great charts!

(And thanks to your work, I realized I could use the 'contact sheet' function within Photoshop to create something similar!)

Forgot to mention in that last post that, for the year '33', the only two possible alternatives would be the regnal dates of Meiji 33, which was 1900, and Showa 33, which was 1958, so my money is on 1933.

Aha! thanks Philatarium,
The English dating system, now seems obvious, well explained!
We shall keep an eye on the ddmmyy going forward, to check.



Here, I meant the "first (earliest) occurence" of the roller cancel in my collection.
I may have 1 or 2 on the 1914 Yen values, I need to check,
but that would be consistent with parcel high rate values.

Cheers for the opinion on the Violet CDS, but the punctured fragment at back is a head scratcher.

Thanks, Rodney, for the reminder about the initials. I have seen Japanese perfins before. (I know I have a small selection somewhere.) I'll ask a couple of specialists and see if I can find out anything about yours.