Featured Vintage Japanese Happi

Put this on another site a couple years ago. Learned it was Japanese happi, possibly from the San Francisco baseball games in Japan, after WW2. Trying to find out more about it, like what is the writing on the front say? Could be a name of a player not sure. Were they given to the American players as souvenirs? Just anything I can find out about it. Pretty sure my grandmother brought it back from Japan, many years ago. (probably needs a cleaning too).
Did have a few people contact me to see if it was for sale or not, when I posted it last time. Thank you for your comments.

 

I have a friend who had a baseball shop. I’ll see if he knows anything about it.

 

I found an online article about the San Francisco Seals' goodwill trip to Japan in 1949. The article says the players were given many mementos and gifts during the trip. Kimonos are mentioned. So I would think happi would have been given, too.

I am using my phone right now and realized I don't know how to copy from the clipboard to here. So, search
"san francisco seals" japan

It should come up near the top of the list of results.

 

I had no luck with this. He knew nothing of it. Sorry.

 

Appreciate the effort. Seems only die hard SF Giants fans know anything about it.

 

Still relatively new here, so that's our flimsy excuse for coming in five months late on this thread -- but if dc is still looking for information on history and market value of the piece, the best information available on it can be found by registering at http://net54baseball.com/ and asking the several expert collectors and historians over there.

 

I don't usually comment on very old threads, especially when the original poster hasn't been here in quite a while. But I ran across the link I was going to post last time, and also a different one that talks about a 2017 biography of Lefty O'Doul, a former major league baseball player who managed the minor league San Francisco Seals in the late 1940s when they visited Japan. He had a lot to do with popularizing professional baseball in Japan.

Here's the post I referred to in my comment above:
https://www.californiapioneers.org/...o-seals-goodwill-baseball-tour-of-japan-1949/

I also just found this one:
https://www.mlb.com/news/remarkable-lefty-odoul-detailed-in-new-book/c-228451400

Meanwhile, dcfirebottle hasn't been seen here since last March so didn't even see the post from July! Maybe he will come back some time, since he was active here for a few months. (Tried to tag him but couldn't for some reason...)

 

The katakana writing says shiruzu, which is seal in Japanese. (per a Japanese speaker I am sharing Thanksgiving with.)

 

Thank you, @2manybooks --

 

hummm seal.....why am i not surprised....