Wine Blue Mt. Fuji Seal

[AlexSmith]

Anyone interested? I'm considering selling it for $2,500?



Just kidding... if I actually owned this there is no way I would sell :p
I did get to play this a bunch though, along with a lot of other strange old kendamas, while visiting the JKA head office in Tokyo. Super cool! One of the first things they told us when we arrived was 'you can play with anything in that case!'. Aka any of the few hundred kens that were in the massive trophy case that spanned one whole wall of the office. We were a little awstruck, but then dove straight in!

One thing I learned while there is that trying to list all of the old JKA kendamas/seals is an impossible task. There are more old models and seals then you could imagine, the list would be huge.

Super interesting getting to see the head office, definitely a day I won't be forgetting anytime soon!

[HansNickmans]

Is this Mt. Fuji seal kendama the precursor of the Fuji and Shin Fuji?

Sound like a wonderful day and a great experience, thanks for sharing!

[SamB]

So very jealous. Do you have any other pictures of the whole case and/or some other very rare kendamas and seals?

[AlexSmith]

Is this Mt. Fuji seal kendama the precursor of the Fuji and Shin Fuji?

Sound like a wonderful day and a great experience, thanks for sharing!

I believe that is correct. I think the timeline looks something like:
mid-Late 80s/early 90s: Mt Fuji Seal and probably the Sakura Blossom seal were produced (among other kendamas, those two are notable though)
somtime in the 90s: the Fuji and Sakura Models were produced. Usually with a straight gold seal (there were some with straight silver seals at the JKA office though). (again, other damas were produced as well, but these two are the notable models for our purposes)
Then the Shin Sakura and Shin Fuji were released at some point, which more or less defined the contemporary ken shape.

Sam, I took some other photos, but mostly on film, which I havent developed yet. If I manage to get digital copies I'll try to remember to post them here! There will likely be some footage of the collection in some of the KendamaUSA edits coming out in the next little while.

[Thorny]

Phwoar.

[BrandonYoder]