| Hi Don,
Thanks for thinking of me. Yes, I would love a better photo of one of the orginal and famous Kobayashi showas. Which one have you found? Let me know the issue and I may have it already if not perhaps you could lend it to me and I would return it after scanning the photo.
There are often several different stories of how new types of koi were created. Several different descriptions of the parent koi can be found in some of these old stories. I think it was secret because when a new type of popuar koi was created a lot of money could be made.
The first Ogons and Gin Rin Kohakus sold for huge sums of money I have been told. So it would be sensible to throw the competition off track by telling different versions of how the new koi were created. It occurs to me that perhaps many of the commonly repeated stories are false trails to throw off the other breeders. Also when you consider the additional possiblilties of parental phenotype vs genotype it gets even more obscure. For example let's say a koi that looks like a shiro utsuri is used for a parent but it is really a showa and just no hi might be apparent.
On my recent trip to Japan I was able to gatner some more data and photos and discuss some of these same issues with several breeders. |