Authenticity is Everything
OT: Hiroshima 80 Years Today, August 6th, 1945 8:17 am Local Time.
Hi All,
A big day today for remembering.I will just post my newly displayed HIroshima Collection, not what you have seen before. At the corners of the display are folded bits of 1920's Japanese rice paper. There is a boxed (Paulownia or Phoenix wood) heat flashed melted or vitrified Traditional Kawara roof tile, a ceramic wire nut with a sheet rock nail fused into it, a fragment of a blue and white plate (in the clear box resting on Chirimin 1920's silk) with blast material encrusted, and a fragment of melted window glass with a direct line of provenance back to Hiroshima, near the location of true location of Ground Zero, above Shima Hospital (not the intended T-shaped bridge). This was not melted by the secondary firestorm. The model of the Genbaku Dome is attributed to the Wago-En Tea House c. 1955. The dome is made of pot metal from the area. There is a GI's souvenir lighter, a 1940's celluloid bridge representing change and several other small items. Bronze cranes and a Torii gate (also change or transformation) are there as well. Nagasaki is now underneath the top shelf in a 1920's black lacquer box. The blast artifact is wrapped in Chirimin Kimono silk handwoven in the 1920's. The silk, like the handkerchief on the tabletop, comes from Kyoto, the initial target for August 6th.
On the wall are original photographs by Yuichiro Sasaki (Dome at sunrise, Hiroshima 1949) and Yamahata (Woman and child with rice balls, Nagasaki, August 10th, 1945), Also, a large photograph on the right top of survivor, author and potter Kiyoshi Kikkawa (1913-1987), who made the pentagonal plate on the table as well as the boxed roof tile. His signature is beneath his photograph on a postcard he sold. I have many signed books and photographs by/of him, including him signing his autobiography in 1952. I have that copy. There are a few candid photographs of him on the table as well.
All of my items except the glass passed through his "Atomic Souvenir Shop." One of the groups he spearheaded was just awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize (the Nihon Hidanyko). There is also a leaflet with very strong graphics. There is, under all in a cabinet, a memorial to my Grandfather who was awarded a Bronze Star under General Order 68 in September of 1945 for being part of the ground crew for these 2 missions
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on
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I sold my first blast artifact, a roof tile from the Sareinji Temple signed by Rev. Katsuki, on August 6th 2015. I sold the last item, which I authenticated and represented at auction this 80th year in June. A 24 oz shihebin or sake bottle, also vitrified. It lost some heighty from the melting. I will no longer be handling this material. It was a great run. I made some 1900 % profit on my initial investment for my first sale.
Both are shown below. I can't even remember how many items I handled in the last 10 years. Dozens. Mostly roof tiles and the like, some glass and some plates and other things like paramagnetic metal and conglomerate. A good bit went to a collector in Australia, another bit to a Professor in Munich, and some to a researcher at a college in this country. He did a lot of the testing of my artifacts.
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I want to mention I did not learn this fact about my Grandfather until late last year when I was getting his medals together and some military ID cards and letters to my Grandfather including one from 5 Star General "Hap" Arnold at the end of the war or just after. Arnold was the "father of the American Air Force" having been personally instructed in the ways of the air by the Wright brothers in 1911. He was the first aviator to use a radio to report observations as well. In the end, starting with 22,000 men, he was ultimately responsible for 2.5 million men.
As for my Grandpa,. he had no idea what he was doing until after the fact. I think it is something he always regretted from the few things he said about war. He never mentioned what he did to anyone at all. Ads far as I know, this included my Grandmother and mother.
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Here is a closer look at the Genbaku Dome model and Hiroshima blast items in my collection: And a good image of the pottery by Kikkawa.
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Today marks 80 years since Nagasaki.11:02 am local time.
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