Ryohei Ishikawa

Ryohei Ishikawa
Born	July 1927 (age 98)
Occupation	Banker
Known for	Collection of U.S. postage stamps
Board member of	Chubu Bank, Teisan Group

Ryohei Ishikawa (born July 1927) is a Japanese banker, the former chairman of Chubu Bank and the Teisan Group. He is a philatelist specialising in the stamps and postal history of the United States, Hawaii, and Hong Kong.

Early life

Ryohei Ishikawa was born in July 1927. ^[1]

Career

Ishikawa is a banker and the former chairman of Chubu Bank and the Teisan Group. ^[2]

Philately

The block of four of the 1869 24c United States stamps with inverted centre once owned by Ishikawa (shown inverted).

Catalogue for sale of The Ishikawa Collection of stamps and postal history of the Hawaiian Islands, Sotheby's, 1980.

Ishikawa was briefly a stamp collector as a child. His interest was rekindled in 1970 when his mother gave him some old albums she had found in the family home. He decided to specialise in United States stamps after reading Stanley B. Ashbrook's The United States One Cent Stamp of 1851-1857 (1938) and subsequently formed a leading collection of that issue, moving on to other classic U.S. stamps. ^[4]

In addition, Ishikawa has formed leading and award-winning collections of the stamps and postal history of Hawaii, Hong Kong, and foreign post offices in Japan. His U.S. collection included all the stamps issued from 1847 to 1869 ^[2] as well as items such as the unique block of four of the 1869 24c stamps of the United States with an inverted center that had once been in the collection of William Thorne. ^{[5] [6]} The collection was sold for $9.5 million at Christie's, New York, in 1993. ^{[2] [7]}

Selected publications

Auctions

• The Ryohei Ishikawa Collection of The Postage Stamps and Postal History of the Hawaiian Islands. Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 1980.
• The Ryohei Ishikawa Collection: Postage Stamps and Postal History of Hong Kong and Treaty Ports. December 4th and 5th 1980. Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1980.
• The Ryohei Ishikawa Collection: Foreign Post Offices in Japan 7th July 1981. Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981.
• The Ryohei Ishikawa Collection: United States Stamps and Covers 1847-1869 New York Tuesday, September 28 and Wednesday, September 29, 1993. Christie's, New York, 1993.

Books

• The Forerunner Foreign Post Offices in Japan. British-U.S.-French. Ryohei Ishikawa's Collection. Japan Philatelic Publications, Tokyo, 1976.

References

1. Birch, Brian. (2013) Biographies of Philatelists and Dealers . 13th edition. Standish, Wigan: Brian Birch, p. 1343.
2. Stamp Collection Sold for Record $9.5 Million, Barth Healey, New York Times, 3 October 1993. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
3. "The 1889 Eden Musee Exhibition" in The Siegel Despatch, No. 60 (Fall 2018), p. 7.
4. The Ryohei Ishikawa Collection: United States Stamps and Covers 1847-1869. Christie's, New York, 1993. p. 11.
5. 24¢ Green & Violet, Center Inverted. Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
6. United States Stamp Treasures: The William H. Gross Collection. Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, New York, 2018. pp. 196-201. Archived here.
7. The Lesson of Mr. Ishikawa's Stamp Collection. Hobart Rowen, The Washington Post, 14 October 1993. Retrieved 19 February 2019.

External links

• Media related to Ryohei Ishikawa at Wikimedia Commons