Posted by Spider on May 03, 1997 at 01:02:15:
There seem to be two styles of round Watanabe seals (other than pre-earthquake).
On one style, the outer circle is a single line, and on the other a double line.
There are also other slight differences in the four interior characters. And
it seems that the single-line seals are on newer (posthumous?) reprints.
At first I thought the single-line prints are the so-called "7 mm", but they
measure at about 6.1 mm, hardly different from the 6 mm double-line
seal.
Are there seals that actually measure 7 mm? I haven't seen one yet.
And what about round seals being red? Not meaningful?
I've heard that the Everson book (Kawase Hasui and his Contemporaries)
does not tell the whole/correct story on round seals, especially whether
they can truly be used to identify post-war first editions. Specifically,
how can a post-war first edition be distinguished from a second edition?
Also, the Everson book does not say when the special square H seal was
in use (are they always red?).
Hopefully someone can shed some light on these subjects.