Collections of an Only Child: Seventy Years a Bibliophile, the Library of Justin G. Schiller

Tokio: The Japan Sericultural Association, 1904. 4to. (xvi), 23 pp., 24-166 ff., 18 pp. Profusely illustrated with chromolithographs depicting Japanese silk producer trademarks. Publisher's stiff chromolithographed wrappers, original blue silk ties, orange kadogire, extremities and wrappers lightly worn, small chip to lower rear corner; all edges trimmed; typed slip from Morimura, Arai & Co., laid in, sending the present book as compliments from the publisher; ownership ink stamp of the Zürcher Handelskammer (Zurich Chamber of Commerce) on title-page; in green cloth fall-down-back box.

Rare survey of early 20th century Japanese silk producers, prepared for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Featuring dozens of finely printed chromolithographs showing their often elaborate and highly decorative trademarks, as well as an overview of the Japanese silk industry and its history.

Morimura, Arai & Co., was a Japanese silk export business established in the 1890s by Arai Ryoichiro, in partnership with Ichizaemon Morimura. A counterpart of Ryoichiro's other silk business, Yokohama Kiito Gomei Kaisha, Morimura, Arai & Co. handled direct sales to the United States, and by 1908 accounted for 30% of all silk exports to the United States and cotton imports from the United States to Japan.

A near-fine copy.