Japan Stationary 1898 - Text Blackening

Hello,

Attached a Japanese stationary allegedly from 1898 with a 1 Sen imprint. The text on the rear is partially blackened.

Is this some sort of censorship ? If yes, can anyone tell what was the nature of censoring in Japan at the time ?

Thanks
Dieter

No. Original form of "text editing" before "White Out" was invented.

A few examples from 1944 with black outs(in japanese)…
https://www.showakan.go.jp/publicat...ji_yubin.pdf
Otherwise you can refer to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censo...ire_of_Japan

Actually, I should have remembered that however, the reason was the ink appeared to be the same as the manuscript ink and I did not see a Censor mark, which is normally found on censored Japanese covers and cards to indicate Censor review & edit.

@Hal

You are implying that this has been blackened by the writer of the card, since the ink seems to be the same and censor marks are missing, correct ?

Seen it before with cards which contain a bit if personal information, but are sold to a dealer. Sort of like censorship, but in the family.

What is the red Japanese letters on the front side ? Looks like a stamp mark to me. Even more so since it stains to the rear.

As one who does not read Japanese, I wonder whether that red stamp on the front could be an indication of censoring? Particularly since this card is from the early years of official censorship (per the site that perf12 has provided).

Also, is that Japanese handwriting?

I think there is two options for the red stamp. One is that it is a censor mark, the other is that it is an addresser's stamp.

I think to ultimately clarify this would need someone who can read Japanese.

Yes, indeed. That is to say, it's old-fashioned Japanese cursive or kuzushiji, which I can't read at all. (I see the hiragana mi in there a couple of times, but I may even be wrong about that.)

Here are a couple of short but informative articles on the subject:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/hen...ting-system/
http://naruhodo.weebly.com/blog/int...to-kuzushiji



It's definitely the latter. The four larger characters are a man's name; the family name is most probably Yokota (other readings of the kanji are possible), and I think the given name is Ginzô. The smaller characters are an address in Tokyo's Kanda district: "Tôkyô Kanda-ku Zaimoku-chô 7-banchi."

https://edo.amebaownd.com/posts/3298168/

@erilaz

Thanks for the clarification. That means the blackening has been done by either the addresser or the adressee for whatever reason, maybe to protect personal information (when the card was sold to a stamp dealer or the like)

I had contact with a Japanese stamp dealer asking about this. He confirmed that the blackening has most likely been done by the writer of the card. This is due to misspelled text. According to him this is not unusual for the period. He is also unable to decipher the date of cancellation in the stamp.