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Authenticity is Everything
Hiroshima Survivor Kiyoshi Kikkawa Earliest Signature I Have Seen 1951 Still in Red Cross Hospital
Hi All,
Many of you know I collect artifacts, bits...of buildings, melted roof tiles, melted windows with wood in them, fused ceramic and metal, blasted electrical bits with aggregate...things from the Hiroshima Atomic Bombing. That blast stuff is very hard to authenticate. I also collect Survivor autographs - the closer to 1945 the better. Of the many signatures I have, even from this one man, and the many I have examined, this is the earliest yet by a full year. It's a man whose material I collect seriously.
Kiyoshi Kikkawa opened a "souvenir shop" near the Dome in mid-late 1951 and spoke and traveled and was a great proponent of peace. He helped to preserve the Dome. Shown below is him in the Red Cross hospital in 1946 or '47, the earliest signature I have seen, him after this still in the Red Cross Hospital (he left in April 1951 citing poor food and treatment), him signing his autobiography in his "Atomic Shop" near the Genbaku Dome 1953, the autobiography, signed and stamped, a rare snapshot from June,1952 showing him being photographed by solders - he had a badly flash-burned back with keloid formations I won't show here, and he would expose it ceremoniously for anyone who asked, and - a rare color slide of his shop in about 1954. Click to see entire image.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on
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New results from many months research. The presence of these isotopes can mean only one thing. Hiroshima August 6th, 8:15 am:
[wire nut image removed at request of new owner]
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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on
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Fascinating collection Eric. That insulator is exactly the type we used for our electric fences.
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Thanks Scott. I have 2 of these. I was watching a newer film called Ichiban Densha Ga Hashitta which was about the first trolley - up and running in 72 hours! (It ran for 1.4 Km but was a great symbol of life in an apparently dead city. Some of the action took place in an electrical substation and i started noticing all this ceramic stuff. The trolley is a very famous story - three original trolleys that survived the bombing still run in Hiroshima. I was very excited and started looking into this. Why would two of the same ceramic items be be found in mixed rubble 5 to 15 feet deep? This suggests they existed in quantity. That they are not fused with dirt like most things suggests an unusual location (on a pole). From the photographic record I could not see this sort of thing in the trolley system - but there were telephone and telegraph poles all over Hiroshima. So, that is more or less how I deduced this must be from one or the other. Quantity and condition. The Europium was confirmed by a radiation museum that purchased a small quantity of items for their collection that had nothing from Hiroshima)m and so I could get proper readings. I had been authenticating visually and by other means but not with isotope readings. To my pleasure, all my items are genuine and from that day and place.
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Further research needed. This may well be from 1930's "knob and tube" wiring - homes.
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Yet more. The photo on the left was taken within 2-3 minutes of the detonation. The image was thought lost until found in 2013. This photo is on the left in the composite below; a rare early 1945-46 printed "cheap" card on the right in my collection shows this image despite its "lost" nature:
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I suspect the "cheap" card above on the right is from 1945-1947 or so, and circulated among Japanese etc. to show what happened, as it was very unclear for a while. I do not quite understand why the image was thought "lost" as it appears on this card, yes - this one is rare, but also the (later) color card posted previously, which is comparatively common.
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Some more.
A Kodachrome from December 1945 that you simply won't see be seeing anywhere else.
And here is a backlit image of one of my glass fragments showing wood possibly from a window sill - other clearly have plants in them. One is a horrid "snowglobe" with fallout ash and god knows what else caught in a bubble. You know what is in there.
This is a "tame "peice:
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Unique photograph of the Genbaku Dome in 1949 - very early, that partial wall on the left facing you has not fallen yet. This view from INSIDE is very rare:
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Thought you might like to see these bits of heat flashed "knob and tube " wiring and melted window glass I sold a while back to an online museum of radioactivity. The tube is typical of the 1930's home wiring; it shows encrusted debris material fused to the surface indicating close proximity to "zero ground". A wire would have passed inside through a wooden beam. Also, a bit of melted window glass from a reinforced cement building farther out. Perhaps 2" x 1" - I don't recall. Liquidity visible ikn the "folded" areas, and the dark matter is likely window sill ash, quite visible from the other side. Both still emit specific Europium isotopes created by the Hiroshima bomb, August 6th, 1945. In my collection I have a huge fragment og melted glass with sill material and also twigs in entirety with some sticking out.
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Fascinating collection. How do you house these? Do you have to keep them in a lead lined container or is radiation now such that it is within "safe" levels? I suspect museums are the largest collectors of this type of material?
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Hi Scott,
Thank you! They are not "glow in the dark" radioactive, they are OK to handle with reasonable precautions (gloves, shirt), and not to inhale dust etc. as that would be bad. Wash up afterwards. They are OK to store in simple sealed plastic containers. I do have them in lead for peace of mind actually - I bought the lead before I knew exactly how hot they were or not, so I keep using it. Museums do have the largest amount of this material but there is no way of estimating what was brought back bit by bit by solders returning from Korea or from 1945 - like this glass. It was found by a soldier and he brought back at least 5 pieces. Items from 1945 are incredibly rare. I have a roof tile, window glass, home electrical knob and a section of a blue and white plate. Apart from the glass, the rest was collected in 1950-51. Few and far between are the opportunities to buy this material.
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Hi again Scott, here is a link to the online radiation museum that has some of my material on display. Scroll down and see "Melted Glass Fragment With Inclusions" and "Unknown Fragment With Fused Debris".
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