Jacob Filipp

Japan’s Print Specimen Exchange

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I’ve written a lot about the UK-based Printers International Specimen Exchange, but few people have heard of Hana no Shiori (花の栞 第).

Hana no Shiori – which translates to something like “Pressed Flower Bookmark” was a Japanese printers’ exchange. It was a compilation of the finest Japanese letterpress work of the late 19th century.

The the Tokyo Tsukiji Type Foundry published Hana no Shiori, and there were 5 volumes:

Volume 1 – 1893

A low-quality scan sourced from https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/854041
If you are a Japanese citizen, you might be able to request a colour scan of the document.

My comments: many of these images feature bent-rule work. It is the art of making a picture by using snippets of ~1cm tall pieces of flat metal. Part of creating the picture involves the use of wooden blocks to hold the metal wires in place tightly.

A LOT of very finnicky rule-work went into this picture. I have no idea how the sakura flowers on the kimono were done – perhaps with pre-cast “printers’ ornaments” that were filed down or masked-off in the final print?
A house made out of printers’ ornaments – this is a different kind of manual artwork than rule-work

Volume 4 – 1902

These colour photos are from https://www.aobane.com/books/252

This is very much in the style of western “Artistic Printing”
Incredible work – made with bent copper “rules” and remixed borders & printers’ ornaments.

The below photos are from https://kohunkankappan.jp/restart

I can see at least 11 distinct colours here – the rest would’ve been created by overprinting different colours with each other. Imagine passing 11 different plates through the press, all perfectly aligned, to get this picture.

Low quality scans from the National Diet Library at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/854042

The kind of fake perspective effect that’s used in letterpress to create the sensation of depth
Love this guy!

Volume 5 – 1908

Low quality scans from the National Diet Library at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/854043

Absolutely holds its own with western design of the time

More Japanese letterpress

Motogi Shozo and the history of Japanese Typography

BOOK OF SPECIMENS MOTOGI & HIRANO:

A later Japanese print sample book with advertisements: https://kogundou.exblog.jp/243577816 (print sample book in Japanese: 印刷見本帖)


And more samples:
https://kogundou.exblog.jp/243577814/


https://www.kosho.or.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=567808738

Tokyo Tsukiji Type Foundry type specimen catalogue: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/854017/1/7

Another type catalogue from Tokyo Tsukiji:

And here is a copy of the same catalogue as above in better condition, with additional pictures.

ARC Japanese Old Book Database – a cool search engine that surfaces book scans

For reference, the full citation for those 3 Hana no Shiori scans at the NDL is:

Call No. (NDL)403-85Other Form Call No. (NDL)YDM72136Bibliographic ID of National Diet Library000000489883
At https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp

More about Artistic Printing

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