Samurai Perfume Company Talcum
Ok, this might not be Japanese, but this is the kind of stuff I like collecting and it has dual meaning to me. First off I inherited it from my Grandfather who was an avid collector of absolutely anything (might be where I got my antiques virus from) and it also shows how Eastern crazed the West was at the turn of the Twentieth century.
I can’t find any information for this item anywhere, but I can at least tell you what it states on the canister. The Samurai Perfume Co. was based in Newburgh, New York, which during the late 1800’s was quite an industrial hub (so much so that it is actually the first American city to be electrified and had the first electric street lights). This product was first registered under the Food and Drug Act on June 30, 1906. Reg. No. 10,168. This tin can be dated to 1914 due to the two IRS tax stamps affixed to the label, one for 3/8ths of a cent and the other for 1/4 of a cent. There is some Kanji on the label but my reading is rusty and can’t make out more than a few characters. Also, there are a lot of Japanese style imagery that may or may not be actual historical motifs and I haven’t had the time to try and decipher them. In any case, I don’t care, I just love the thing. If anyone out there knows about this stuff please let me know.
Here are a few close ups so you can check out the coolness for yourself.
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May 15th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I like the new blog design. Have always been a big fan of bamboo!
(one minor beef – it won’t fit on my monitor (1024 px resolution!)
The can of talcum is quite cool. Do you have any more information about he Samurai Perfume Company?
March 16th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
hi! i stumble upon an article from this blog and it makes me feel like i wanna read more. it’s a great and interesting blog especially because i am really into reading about the history of tokyo right now! by the way i didn’t study about this problem so long but the kanji are some kind of decoration right ? like the japanese style imagery ?
the 1st word 佐武 can be read “sabu” but it’s a name and not of anyone famous, a manga character seems to be called this way and he’s a samurai.
The next to kanji are not a word but basically mean “good” and “rank”, so a cosmetics from a “good quality”, not high, not low just good, which explain why there is not product with this in japan, because there are other words than mean, high quality or luxurious (高級 is one of them).
About the last words, it’s completely out of my range as i can not read the first kanji 5th from the top, it doesn’t look right actually. The last one can be find in 神社（shrine） or 会社（company） but i have no clue as the first one is unreadable.
the two out of the brownish part where the 6 kanji are written, are probably 福 and 壽. the 1st one is probably happiness, the second is an old writting of 寿 which has congratulations in one of its meanings.
i’m not doctor es kanji but i never miss an opportunity to study so i took the last hour to think about it.
thanks again for your interesting blog.
thomas
March 25th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Hey Thomas, thanks for your effort, you got alot farther in the kanji identification than I did. I think your translations really help in describing the product and really add to the post. Arigato gozaimashita.