Are there any references on Hansatsu in English? I've seen a few in Japanese, but nothing in English.
This question was just asked on the IBNS forum. The answer there was that there are no references in English.
I have one that is allegedly from the mid 18th century Hiroshima and I would like to verify that - and check it out on a Geiger counter.
The IBNS discussion indicated there is a Japanese catalog that has color illustrations of the notes although it is written entirely on Japanese. The illustrations were good enough for the non-Japanese reader to attribute notes. It costs about $200.00 however.
The following was posted on the IBNS discussion board about Hansatsu: When I sold my main Japan paper collection in 2001, I kept all of my hansatsu, thinking that someday I would publish my collection as representing what most Westerners would encounter in hansatsu. There is no way I could publish a comprehensive hansatsu catalog - I don’t have enough pieces (only about 1400), and I have an entire shelf of hansatsu catalogs in Japanese that I cannot read very easily. There were about 1750 ISSUERS of hansatsu at the time of the Meiji restoration - daimyos, hatamoto, merchants, pawnbrokers, village cooperatives, craftsmen’s guilds - you name it. When you think of all the separate series, individual denominations, and practically endless reissue stamps, it’s a hopeless task for a non-Japanese linguist.
