An Antique Daifukucho: Well-Used Ledger
ca. late nineteenth, early twentieth century
15" x 5" x 2", 38 cm x 12.5 cm x 5 cm
This is a very nice, old daifukucho, an hand bound, hand written book which could have originally been used for inventories, for accounting, for ledgers or as a record of loans.
This one is thick with many pages, each one filled with hand writing done in sumi or charcoal-based ink. Its two covers show hand written kanji or Chinese characters, and there is evidence of a small burn hole to the back cover and to a few of the pages underneath. Scrawled in ink on of the pages is "1857" (in Arabic numerals) which could be either the date this page was written or a numbered tally.
A good example of a traditional daifukucho, with its original, intact cording.