Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Happy Birthday Iwate Nippo

The Iwate Nippo (岩手日報) Newspaper celebrated its 130th birthday on July 21st.
Iwate Nippo - 130 years old
[Masthead of Iwate Nippo for July 21, 2006]

The published a special edition with three sections full of history, information and, of course, advertising. One thing that I did not see, though, was a reproduction of the first edition! My friend Mr. Takahashi suggested that maybe they don't have one! There is a reproduction of the front page of the June 21, 1905 edition in Takuboku Ishikawa's Honeymoon House in Morioka. (Notice the very different Kanji for 'Iwate' in the photos!)

Takuboku Ishikawa - Iwate Nippo
[Masthead of Iwate Nippo for June 21, 1905]

From collecting stamps I know that the climate in Japan is not good for preserving paper. The best old Japanese stamps come from North America or Northern Europe where the air is much drier! So I suppose the typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, fires and floods combined with all the other more normal ravages of time have taken their toll. If you ever find a 130 year old Japanese newspaper it just might be worth some money!

The Iwate Nippo web site is only in Japanese!

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home