Japan’s Print Specimen Exchange

I’ve written a lot about the UK-based Printers International Specimen Exchange, but few people have heard of Hana no Shiori (花の栞 第). Hana no Shiori – which translates to something like “Pressed Flower Bookmark” was a Japanese printers’ exchange. It was a compilation of the finest Japanese letterpress work of the late 19th century. The the Tokyo Tsukiji Type Foundry published Hana no Shiori, and there were 5 volumes: 1st volume – 1893 2nd volume – 1894 ← no scans 3rd volume – 1898 ← no scans 4th volume – 1902 5th volume – 1908 Volume 1 – 1893 A low-quality scan sourced from https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/854041If you are a Japanese citizen, you might be able to request a colour scan of the document. My comments: many of these images feature bent-rule work. It is the art of making a picture by using snippets of ~1cm tall pieces of flat metal. Part of creating the picture involves the use of wooden blocks to hold the metal wires in place tightly. A LOT of very finnicky rule-work went into this…