Japanese late 1930s Postcard Album with Chinese occupation.
Japan: Ca. 1938. Hardcover. Album comprising 100 cards, with embossed illustration of a gun toting soldier on the cover and with a map printed inside the cover showing Japanese territory in China. The postcards are mostly colored artist postcards, many stamped and mailed.
Presumably put together by a Japanese soldier with the occupation force in China. Fortunately, the album consists mainly of artists' cards of places, an doesn't have any of the images of atrocities committed against the conquered Chinese.
Illustrated printed color postcards include many of military life: cavalry units, soldiers bathing in hot tubs, soldiers relaxing in courtyards, a soldier standing in city street, soldiers at drill, and a seaplane. One card with printed signature T. M. Kauri [?]; another signed T. Hazma, and dated 1938.
Other printed color post card subjects include landscapes both Japanese and Chinese, Mt. Fuji, temples, temple gates, Japanese beauties (one waving a Japanese flag), lake and mountain views, pagodas, industrial river sites, river families in their junks, Japanese gardens, and Chinese walled cities.
Color and b&w printed photographic post cards include: mountain landscapes, waterfalls, temples, cherry trees in blossom, and traditional architecture. A real albumen picture post card shows a seated group in Western clothes, the man at the left a military figure, in an outdoor thatched roof gazebo.
Oblong 8vo, 8 1/2 x 5 1/4", cord bound. Dark blue pictorial embossed boards, with red embossed entry gate in fortress wall, embossed Japanese soldier, and Japanese lettering. Faint damp stain mostly top edge early leaves only; chipping to lower corners of album pages only; the postcards clean and bright. Very good overall. Item #24708
Price: $950.00