Some long neglected covers from Japan

[darkormex]

I bought these covers while living in Korea and have kept them but never really spent any time researching them.  I am hoping some of our members who have knowledge of the Japanese language or Chinese characters may be able to shed some light on these.

I am happy I finally took a look at them today.  Two of them were in plastic sleeves which I never opened. Looking at the first one below, I realized that there was still a letter inside which follows.  It looks like it is a bill as I recognized enough Chinese characters to know that the letter includes a table of numbers (the underlined characters) and what looks like a total underneath.

[darkormex]

[darkormex]

[Deleted]

I can translate for you ,,,,,it's means "Stambears is the best forum" something like that, my Japaness is a little bit rusted...

Seriously, Japanesse stuff  are popular in home decoration ; you should frame them and put on the wall, not exposed to the sun.

[darkormex]

Cover #2

[darkormex]

[darkormex]

Cover #3

[darkormex]

[darkormex]

Cover #4

[darkormex]

[samliu]

It is Japanese. looks like it is about inventory of some paper.

Paper type, amount, length, width etc.

[samliu]

By the way, do you have Chinese covers?

[darkormex]

Mar 7, 2015 17:10:48 GMT -5 samliu said:

It is Japanese. looks like it is about inventory of some paper.

Paper type, amount, length, width etc.

samliu, thank you for the information. That really helps to understand. You don't recognize and city names on any of the postmarks by any chance, do you?

Mar 7, 2015 17:13:21 GMT -5 samliu said:

By the way, do you have Chinese covers?

No, unfortunately, I do not have any older Chinese covers only ones that I have received as correspondence from friends and fellow philatelists in the PRC and Taiwan.

[Philatarium]

Mar 7, 2015 17:20:54 GMT -5 darkormex said:

[...] You don't recognize and city names on any of the postmarks by any chance, do you?

darkormex:  Would you be able to send me larger scans of the covers, at least of the postmarks?    (Do you still have my email address?)

[darkormex]

Mar 7, 2015 17:32:46 GMT -5 Philatarium said:

Mar 7, 2015 17:20:54 GMT -5 darkormex said:

[...] You don't recognize and city names on any of the postmarks by any chance, do you?

darkormex:  Would you be able to send me larger scans of the covers, at least of the postmarks?    (Do you still have my email address?)

Yes and yes, Dave.  I will crop them and send them along to your gmail address. Thank you very much.  Give me a couple of minutes and I will get them over to you. I might as well post them here as well after that.  Forewarning that some of them are almost illegible.

[samliu]

actually, by googling the name, the first one is Korea. I do not know in which situations Japanese/Korea use all Chinese characters.

[Philatarium]

Illegible is not atypical for that time!

I'll certainly give it a go.

The reason I didn't offer to do the entire envelope is that reading handwritten Japanese can be an art form unto itself and the kanji are often specialized for proper names, etc.

-- Dave

[darkormex]

Mar 7, 2015 17:39:12 GMT -5 samliu said:

actually, by googling the name, the first one is Korea. I do not know in which situations Japanese/Korea use all Chinese characters.

It is entirely possible that these were letters sent to, from or within Korea as they all seem to fall within the colonial period.  This is one of the reasons why I am curious about the postmarks.

[darkormex]

Mar 7, 2015 17:42:15 GMT -5 Philatarium said:

Illegible is not atypical for that time!

I'll certainly give it a go.

The reason I didn't offer to do the entire envelope is that reading handwritten Japanese can be an art form unto itself and the kanji are often specialized for proper names, etc.

-- Dave

No worries. There were only few characters I could recognize...one envelope in particular is written by hand in a style that the characters are almost impossible to recognize.

[samliu]

Since the stamps are Japanese, i guess the letters were sent from Japan to Korea. If they were sent from Korea, the stamps should be Japanese stamps with overprints, right? I do not know much about it.