JAPAN'S STAMPS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1924, Page 16

JAPAN'S STAMPS

.EARLY EFFORTS IN POSTAGE.

Mr. (afterwards Baron) Jlaeshima was tlie Rowland Bill of Japan, aud his proposals of 1870 led to the adoption of the postage stamp system. There were to be three stamps, printed on "Watoshi" paper, (a native paper resembling Chinese), and in a small square design of which the principal feature was a frame of plum-blossom, with the centre clear for the expression of the denomination. This proposed design gave way in the issued stamps to a square border formed by two dragons with their tails crossed, but plum-blossoms as "the first messengers of the coming spring" would have been more appropriate than dragons, in Mr. Hibata's view, for tho first stamps of Japan. Mr. Maeshima, we are -told, writes Fred. J. Melville in the "Daily Telegraph,", "must have strained his brain much regarding the design and the manufacture of the stamps," and as he had no idea* of the engraving, perforation, gum, .or cancelling appliances, "he seemed to have racked his brain to the utmost in finding a method for preventing the reuse of stamps." He fancied a French stamp, which he borrowed from Viscount Shibuzawa, and passed on to the engraver Matsuda as a sample; it ;'s clear from tho resulting stamps that the specimen must have been one of tho little square "chiffre taxe" or postagedue stamps which had been in use in France since 1859.

The process of printing the main design was "Dohan," a method of etching on copper whicli had been introduced into Japan by Dutchmen about 1870; it was developed independently in the three chief cities Yedo (now Tok'io), Kyoto, and Nagasaki, and many native engravers gained distinction in the art. Of the artists who engraved the early stamps Atsutomo Matsida belonged to the Kyoto school, and Suizan Uremura and Getsurei Nakamui;a to the Yedo school. The design, was drawn on oil paper and transferred to a thin copper plate coated with a special varnish. Over the design thus transferred the engraver works his tool, and the design so freed from the varnish is etched with nitric acid. From the first design transfers were made to complete the plates of forty stamps (five horizontal rows of eight). The method of printing the value in the centre in black is not so clear. Mr. Hibata says: "We are told that dies for the value in black have been cut out on horn of a buffalo, but it is not certain." In the second issue (1872), "it is certain that . the values in black were printed from engraved copper plates." Mr. Maeshima's greatest anxiety, no doubt drummed into him on his visit to St. - Martin-le-Grand, was to protect tho postal 'revenue from the possibility of people using the stamps more than once; It seems a paltry fraud, but that it was not uncommon here is plain from the elaborate precautions and experiments Jto prevent it iv Britain in the early days. Mueshima wanted a weak paper, which, after having once been affixed to a postal article, would not bo easily removed without damage. For the first issue two kinds of paper were used, and each was too strong in substance for Mr. Maeshima's liking. One was a laid paper, the "Watoshi, ' already mentioned, and the other, a woven paper resembling Surugabanshi, a paper made in the province of Suruga. The stamps of.the first issue have long been separated by philatelists into the sets on the two different papers. It was not until the second issuo iii tho new currency of_ _en appeared in 1872 that Mr. Maeshima achieved his choice of paper, a very weak white Chinese paper. This may well have served its intended purpose, but it has a grave disadvantage from the philatelist's point of view, for these tiny flimsies are not easy to obtain or preserve in good condition.