The Local Form Cards issued by Japan Post, Used one and mini-card

I don't  aim to complete-collect the Local Form cards issued by Japan Post  because they are something like many post cards without printed stamps and cost too much.
However, I sent some philatelic cover when I go to the local parts of Japan.
This example was made last month when I've been to Kyoto and the destination is Germany. It costs 110 yen for envelope + 410 yen for Express. JP charges the envelope fee for the deformed postcards.

To exhibit this post card, I have difficulty showing what is depicted, this post card is in fact showing Amano-Hashidate, beautiful scenery of Kyoto.
Mr. Osawa , a friend of mine, thematic collector as well as From cards collector advised me to show the mini-card which you can get one per five purchase of a form-card.
I don't know the existence until his advice.

Buy five and get a mini-card on the left. Please compare the size of the form card on the ritht. In fact I can get this mini-card for free in certain post office.

Postscript: Regarding Ken's comment yesterday, we've already scanned all the Japanese stamps but the release-date has not been fixed just because we'd like to  release it as high level as possible with some information about manufacturing, watermarks and so on. Ken, thank you for the message!

I found a single line perforation > Chrysanthemum

Is it a single line perforation, I think ? (please see the crossing point of the perforation.)

Shimotsuke, Kanuma Telegram Post Office May 20, 1901

 

Studying with Mr. Miwa Furuya's Chrysanthemum stamp!

I've been collecting and placing Japanese stamps stil. In order to study the classification of single-line perforation and comb perforation , I bought a manual of Chrysanthemum stamp which Mr. Miwa Furuya wrote. I bought the same manual series of Koban last year with author's autograph, however I don't have the one of Chrysanthemum. 

Now I can tell the difference of the perforation of Chrysanthemum stamp if it is block. I have little confidence on pairs and singles.

This one is comb perforated because it is beautifully crosses in the middle.
I think the pair of 1.5 sen blue I showed in the preveous blog is single-line perforation, though I'm not sure enough.

Chrysanthemum (2)

I just started studying the lot of Japan Chrysanthemum series yesterday and now I got some used pairs, so I'd like to show you some of them.

The half sen grey with the comb cancellation in the Awaji isle. Unfortunately, the cancellation does not show the year but still nice looking.

1 sen brown with the comb cancellation.

1.5 sen with the circle cancellation with 2 bars of Mita, Tokyo 1902.(=Meiji 35)

2 sen green with the cancelltion of Shibuya Miyamasuzaka 1909(=Meiji 42)

Japan Definitives Chrysanthemum Series 1899-1907

I took part in the philatelic meeting held in Osaka this weekend and inspired bysome philatelists collecting Japanese stamps.
So when I came back to Tokyo, I was finally decided to try to classify and place big lot of my Japanese stamps I bought for this 5 years. As a matter of fact I thought this idea for a several times before but I've never done it before. Anyway I started collecting Japanese stamps yesterday.
First I'm placing all the single used definitives to the stock leaves. The stampedia catalogue policy is "give main number only to the stamp which can destinguish from the other stamp easily", so I placed stamps by this policy.
I think checking Japan Definitives Chrysanthemum Series is most easy in this way. This series is very difficult if you classify them by perforations, but I egnore it first.


As a result, I have more than hundreds for some stamps.  There are many kinds of postmarks on this series and some of them are used in Korea(3sen) and Taiwan(20sen,50sen). 6sen and 8sen seem to be fewer than the other stamps, so I'd like to show the best ones  of those two stamps here.


After the arrangement of the chrysanthemum series, I'll go to the other series, and furthermore multiples and covers also.

I started writing a blog on stamp collecting.

Apart from this blog, I started writing a blog on stamp collecting.

I'm going to make one content on stamp collecting through blog system.

I write it in Japanese, however I'm planning to translate it to the other languages.Just for your convenience.

http://philately.seesaa.net/

 

My latest way to create albums

Some philatelists make album leaves as a way of organizing collection. I usually make album leaves only for the exhibit works.  A bitter experience in creating leaves by hand a long time ago made me pursue a way to create album leaves easily with computers and printers since early 1990's and I'd like to show you my latest way to create leaves. 

(1) Use a software for layouting
It's useless to say which software is good because theere're not only windows but mac. What is important , I think , is to use a software for layouting.

Layout software can specify the printing points like DTP and design software. Otherwise, you can't get the same printing result with different computers and printers. This is why I don't recommend MS-Excel and MS-Word.

(2) SCAN materials and place them into a leaf.
If you place stamps and covers on the leaf, you can understand how the work will be. However, it is dangerous because there's a possibility to damage materials.

Thus, I scan all the materials and don't use the genuine stamps and covers for making leaves. What is important is to scan the materials as low resolution as possible. 72 DPI is enough and you don't need 600 DPI at all. 600DPI makes the file size of leaves heaby as well as harm stamps by lighting stamps heavily for a minute.

The scanned images can be cut at some software (for ex. Preview in Mac.) and you can place it on the digital leaves. 

 (3) A3 color printing of 16 in 1.
In order to be aware of 4 x4 leaves in one frame, I think it's better to print the color image of 4x4 leaves on A3 paper. "16 in 1" is also costless and even 8 Frames cost you around $4. Please compare the printing image with iPhone at the right image.

 

I made eight frames of my exhibit work of German States newly and it took me only a three days!