Featured Ivory & Shibuyama Whist or Bezique Counter, Signed

The auction market in general is very slow in the summer. Less real auctions to go to and less bidders/buyers on the online platforms. The amount of sales I get took a nose dive in July and it has each of the last few years. August also bad. July at least the sales I got were a lot of higher dollar stuff. August just sucked all around. Luckily I got one of my best sales ever the other day so that helped. Figures, the item that went really high I wasn’t even aware of what it was when I bought the lot. Good thing I figured it out! Summer is definitely the slow time of the year for auctions and online sales though.

In terms of the Japanese market being soft you might have to look a little further into the future though. Like years, or decades maybe. I don’t think it’s bouncing back in the immediate future like sales in general will when people are inside more. It’s partially affected by the global economy from what I understand. Like when China’s economy boomed. They started wanting to bring their treasures home. I know next to nothing about economics but I understand kind of the opposite happened in Japan. Economy downturned and their buying of their old treasures slowed way down. That lag in sales spreads across the global market and things bring less money and become less desirable worldwide. Japanese stuff is so amazing though that I can’t imagine it won’t rebound. Whether because of an uptick in the Japanese economy or just because people start to see how great it really is again. Netsuke, Inro, woodblock prints, I see them sell for good money regularly. The rest of the Japanese stuff seems to be pretty weak for how good the quality is. I only know enough to sound silly trying to sound smart so take the above with a grain of salt.

 

Nazi Germany was atrocious, but they didn't force POWs into slave labour, nor did they have the system of sex slaves ("comfort girls" was the eufemism for systematic and continuous rape of kidnapped girls and women in Japan occupied Asia).

 

There is the issue of the material though. I don't know how legislation is where whit is, but maybe a private sale would be better?

 

I was assuming material wasn’t an issue for every item. That said just about every single general auction I’ve been to or been a bidder in in the greater northeast has featured items of forbidden materials. 9/10 auctions at least. All the big regional auction houses I frequent are moving that stuff on a very regular basis. There may be some that don’t touch it but I haven’t found them.

Edit: not saying they were “featured” items just saying they were included in the auction inventory. Many auctions have more than a handful of lots compromised of these things.

 

A dealer told me they haven't started going after antiques dealers yet, and his guess is they won't. The idea was to dry up supply of new stuff by killing off demand, and of course virtue signaling. Mostly the latter. The problem with killing demand for new ivory is that no one here wanted it in the first place.

 

That's great, but...I'll be 83 soon, an' I'm not likely to be a player for many more years, let alone decades.

 

Japanese antiques now may turn hot like 90s plastic toys have, but most of us old farts don't have 30 years to wait around and see. I'm on the younger end for this lot and I'm 57. With the MS involved I probably won't be alive 30 years from now either.

 

Yes, I know about the comfort girls..........
but the sexual abuse of women committed by members of the German army is widely known, and as for slave labor......... well...it's well documented...

http://www.camps.bbk.ac.uk/themes/slave-labour.html

 

Not to mention mass extermination of Jews and everyone else Jerry didn't like. (anyone handicapped, Gay/lesbian, Romani, wrong other ethnicity, trade unionists, etc)

 

Fair enough! To be optimistic in 5-10 years modern science/medicine may buy you an extra 50 years. At some point in that time Japanese antiques are bound to grow in value . I guess I’m on the young end here at 40. It sure feels old but it’s all relative. Japanese stuff doesn’t bring nothing now, it’s just down from its height. I’m sure you’ll do just fine on your fantastic quality Japanese things at auction. There is still interest for sure.

 

The sideline dicussion here, about which empire is the nastiest, is rather pointless, IMO, as there can't be a definite answer because they all have been equally monstrous. Same is the Russian Empire. Because it was victorious in WWII, contrary to Nazi Germany and Japan, it often is omitted when speaking about atrocities, which is not right, IMO. "The victorious are not judged" - a saying attributed to the Russian empress Catherine II.

As a member of society directly affected by the Russians I can say that they also did all you mentioned, except maybe extermination camps as Stalin was more practical and preferred first to use the free labour of the millions he considered inferior, before taking their lives. Stalin is said to have slautered more Russians than Hitler, not to mention non-Russians.

And one crucial difference - while both Germany and Japan have admitted their fault and have been distancing from their imperial past, Russia remains there, with the same monstrous thinking and doings, just see what they do in Ukraine! Fortunately, they are not as powerful as in the past but they still can do enough harm to the world especially to the unfortunate nations who happened to be their neighbours. This is huge and very important difference, IMO. In my view it is because they were victorious in WWII and were given half of Europe as a reward. They have never been forced by circumsnaces to think over and realise their monstrousness.

 

I don't believe we were trying to come to some conclusion....
or rating who was the worst....
but the discussion itself.....is what's important ...and must forever continue, in remembrance of the souls who were lost !!

 

Komo, I can't agree more!!! What bothers me though, is that it seems to be an endless pattern of the human kind. The moment one nation gets power and means, it starts oppressing others. And until it is badly (and deadly) beaten, it does not stop

On the other trait - it seems to me that the difference between the interest towards national treasures abroad of China and Japan is rooted not that much in their economic situation (Japan has a mighty economy, comparable with China) but in the same imperial thinking. What I mean - China was an empire but it was badly beaten throughout 20th century, to a large extent by its own forces (communism, Mao and his deeds) but now thanks to the greed and shortsighted actions of the capitalist world, it is a rising empire with all its aspects. One of which is heavy internal propaganda about selfsuperiority and entitlement. And antiques play big part in it, they are broght from abroad, gathered in national museums and shown to the people as justification of imperial pretences - "look what we have produced, we are the chosen". Omitting the obvious, that many other nations have produced equally beautiful things. It is a national governmental policy of China, same with Russia but they are not so rich now and have huge spendings for the aggression. Russians have law forbiding export of all atrefacts made before 1917, and for some after that - constructivists' works, for example. I don't know how about China but suspect something similar.
And it is dangerous. While Japan has been healed from such ambitions for long time after WWII.

 

Yes, it is, but they didn't have an official system, which the Japanese did, as I already said:

And also well known, and you should know by now that I am very much aware of that. The fathers of most of my childhood friends were labour slaves. My father was already in hiding because of his Resistance work when the Germans started to round Dutch boys and men up, otherwise he would have been taken too.
And about the link you posted: The Nazi death camps were cruelly systematic and large scale, without a doubt.
But I added slave labour for POWs, which was against the convention signed by Japan. It was policy in the Japanese occupied countries, but not in German occupied countries, as I said here:

Which is a relevant point because of the The Hague Conventions which I mentioned, at which Japan was present and which Japan also signed:

The fact that people outside Asia generally don't know much about WWII in Asia could also add to the confusion. So to clarify, some numbers, this is just China:
"According to some estimates, China suffered 14 million casualties during World War II, a number included in the approximately 35 million Chinese people who were killed or wounded during over a decade of Japanese occupation.
Out of the thousands of Chinese who were captured, mostly by the Japanese army, and became prisoners of war, only 56 were found alive after the war ended."
https://www.britannica.com/video/222390/aftereffects-World-War-II-China

 

Germany has accepted responsibility. It is taught in schools, and Germans are fully aware.
Japan has hardly admitted anything. It isn't taught in Japanese schools either. They put the focus on the atom bombs, which were devastating, but should be seen together with what led up to the bombs to get a complete picture. They still can't face that, they like to present themselves as victims, which is one of the reasons why I spoke up.

The side discussion was originally about post-war Japanese not getting a fair deal for their treasures, when they had given their victims a 'deal' that was so much worse to the extreme. The reason I replied in the first place is the Japanese victim attitude after all their atrocities. Germans don't have that.
Then things I said were misunderstood, to which I replied with an explanation. And another one just now.
I guess I'm just not good at explaining things. Which is why I'll leave that particular discussion now, I can't explain it any better than I have done.

It is. Which is why we need conventions like the ones I mentioned. Unfortunately history also shows that there will always be nations or groups that think treaties and conventions aren't worth the paper they're written on. The bottom line is, people will always be people.

China has had that for thousands of years. The Japanese have the same attitude btw, they tend to look down on us. Europeans also had it, especially during the colonial era. And some Europeans still have it, as do some North Americans.
I think it is all fueled by fear of losing what a group or nation has acquired.

 

Then things I said were misunderstood, to which I replied with an explanation. And another one just now.
I guess I'm just not good at explaining things.

don't worry about it......everything is understood........ it's just a very tough subject to talk about ....

 

Yes, it is. Even while quoting numbers, I realize that every single one is a person, with loved ones.

 

Indeed.....
& while I have never met a comfort girl.......when I came to work for my Dad....I got to know a couple of the guys in the cutting room.
They both had blue numbers tattooed on their arms.
I grew up hearing about this.....seeing the photos........ but seeing it in person......on a living person.........left an indelible mark........ on my psyche ..!!

 

Any, you are definitely very good at explaining things, the thing is that there are too many aspects and nuances, and besides, as Komo said, it is a tough subject.

I entered the discussion because Russia is often not mentioned when it comes to imperialism, and for me they are the worst case, and they were encouraged by their allies in WWII to be so. And this is what bothers me the most, as it is directly related to my country and region.

I am not knowledgable about what is taught in Germany or in Japan, my opinion is based on what I have read about and heard from people from these countries which by no means is universal. My logic is that even if Japanese look from above, the country acts as if they have realised the past mistakes. They haven't started a war with Russia for disputed territories, and they are now among the most active supporters of Ukraine. For me this is enough to separate them from the Russian imperialism which is (for now) the only one after WWII that waged an aggressive war for territories.

 

I have met quite few.

I met quite a few of those survivors too, Jewish, Sinti, Manouche.

My husband was born in 1942, he spent part of his childhood in a Japanese camp. Part of his family was murdered brutally, and the family lost everything they owned.
Until the day she died, my MIL waited for her brother to come home. He had been taken by the Kempetai, the Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo.

On the cynical upside, my father never had another headache ever since he was hit over the head by a German soldier and passed out.