Old style Sanke coming back?

[danzcool]

That's a heavily photoshopped picture, more in common with a painting than a photo. I generally like jimbei style, but you couldn't give that fish to me.

[mrbradleybradley]

Fortunately there is more to a sanke than the sumi. On jumbo koi, I think the smaller sumi is a little lost. Often Larger sumi fit jumbos better IMHO. like everything, there is well placed large sumi and poorly placed versions. And in this thread we can see both

BB

[JasPR]

The right sanke is the right sanke- no doubt. And fads do come and go. But in truth, the ideal sanke never changes.

The ideal pattern of sanke was probably realized in 1989. The skin was there by 1992. But then there was a reach back in the genetic pool of collector type fish for bone and size. This unraveled the pattern and design for several years now and we consumers, ones without $40,000 to spend on a fish, must settle for high class culls for the time being. Don't get me wrong- you can really appreciate many elements on these castoff fish! But if you want the size along with the color quality and most of all - pattern, you need to pay up- bigtime.

One point, of many, that the US and British consumer/koi buyer does not understand and one that brokers have a field day with, is that aka sanke is considered by most advanced Japanese hobbyists and professionals a lower class pattern and not a very valuable fish. The pattern weights down the fish and removes all sense of refinement. Yet, there are some really beautiful Aka sanke cast offs coming out of the effort to produce a monster size sanke. The simple reason for this is magoi and large moyo patterns are close the wild type and bring wonderful size, sumi and luster. But they are primative patterns and bring us back to unrefined patterns of the 160s- 1970s. So the breeders are now working through this and will take years to get back to the Dainichi or torazo sanke pattern of 1990.
In otherwords, we now have better skin, better sumi, better beni, better size but have ,for the time being, created large numbers of collector type fish that are amazing but at the same time, disappointing.
JR

[111whalen]

JR,
On the west coast it used to be fairly easy to get good sankes. Showas were much more difficult and the quality was not near what you could get on the sanke. Now, it seems the oposite. I have been looking for a good two year old sanke for the past two seasons with little success. Poor patterns, thin fish, and heavy (what I call clumpy) sumi. What gives with that? Were the "stars" lost and there was no bloodline or is it just the goal of size, forcing breeders to start over again with new breeders.

[JasPR]

Hi Mark!

I don't think it is too hard if you will accept a fish with limited growth potential- not a runt but a fish that will top out at say 27-28 inches. In fact, I really like the Dainichi sanke's that can be gotten today. Even though Toshio Sakai makes the best sanke in the world you have to pay very big bucks to get the real deal. He actually makes about three different 'looks' to his sanke: The old style matsunosuke everyone can identify ( don't care for that color beni myself?) and he also makes a very kohaku looking sanke and a third classy red beni bulkier sanke. The sumi is excellent on all.

As far as long heavy red aka types with wild sumi arrangments- I guess it is a sign of the times- lots are males and 'jumbo' tategoi females that magically turn into males at age three!

Best, JR

[koinut]

I think one has to know what he or she wants from a koi. If you are looking to show the koi now, I believe it would do pretty good. Although the sumi is very heavy, the placement is quite nice and in blocks rather than being blotchy and all over the place. We also don't know who the parent koi are that would give more of an indication on which way the sumi will go. I don't know what the future holds for this koi, but it may also tighten up as it gets older and larger. There are too many factors that would make this koi develope very differently from pond to pond. Not too many people can also grow a koi to its true potential either. I say that if you can afford the koi, why not. I personally like the way the koi looks now, but who knows how it will look in the future. Only time will tell. JMHO.

[Bern]

Has anybody considered that this fish could be displaying 'Atarashi' sumi ?

I have had very little 'real' experience of this (seen 2 small fish in the flesh) and photos only portray the pattern not the essence of the sumi, but many of those photos look more like Showa than Sanke even down to something very close to Motoguru.

Although 'Atarashi sumi' is supposed to be still under development by Toshio Sakai a Sanke with it was shown at the last Combined Show by Momotaro.

rgds
Bern

[Terry]

Quote: Originally Posted by aquitori Old style Sanke coming back? This Sanke, has the Jimbei characteristics....It was breed by Momotaro, my question is....would this be a Sanke you would buy knowing your water was super hard and more sumi was to come...or...would you be more concerned about overall quality maintaining itself on this fish.

Jinbei？　I think。