Hey, Ray! (Jordan that is) . . .

[KoiCop]

Read your bit on the Kobayashi showa in the last issue of KoiUSA (32/3) and wondered if you needed a decent color pic of it?

I saw such a pic in an old KoiUSA magazine article from the early 90's that I read a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure I can dig it out if you're interested.

While we're on the subject, I'm sure it was that same article that had a different version of how the first showa was created vs. the ones you related in your Koi History and Genealogy - Part 3 (KoiUSA 32/2).

Let me know, OK?

[RayJordan]

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.

[KoiCop]

Hello Ray . . .

The pic is of Mits Nakamura's GC from the Agricultural Festival, the one that won the flag that still hangs in the rafters at Asahi Koi in Gardena, CA. As I remember, the other showa was purchased by Dr. Kuroki.

I'll dig it out tomorrow and scan it, so you can see for yourself.

[RayJordan]

I look forward to seeing it. Thank you.

[farne230]

Hi Ray: I also have a set of Koi USA's that go back to the 70's if you need to borrow one, since you are near by. By the way I just received my set of Koi I & Koi II just published, very nice, adds info where the Koi Kichi's left a few topics open.
Bob

[KoiCop]

Here ya go, Ray. It's from an article by Ron Saldana in the Jul/Aug 1992 KoiUSA (Volume 17/Issue 1) entitled "Showa."

[KoiCop]

Hello Ray,

Here's the pertinent section from the same article explaining how showa came to be:

Near the beginning of Japan's showa era, deep in the mountains of Niigata, a koi breeder named Yamaguchi, who lived in Kogomo, Higashi Takezawa, experienced an accidental koi breeding that produced a unique tri-colored koi to be called showa sanshoku.

As the story was told in 1985 by Tasuke Hoshino of Niigata, a male shiro bekko broke through a pond sep­aration and bred with an asa­gi. This produced the strange tri-colored female koi that Yamaguchi sold to Jukichi Hoshino when it was two years old. A description of the koi indicated it had nose sumi, motoguro on the pecto­ral and caudal fins, the sumi of utsuri, white ground and hi patterns.

Hoshino waited until the koi's fifth year to breed it with a male kohaku, ki utsuri and a shiro utsuri. For three years he spawned the koi and the resulting offspring estab­lished showa as a separate koi variety.

You'll quickly notice, I'm sure, that in this 1985 anecdote the varieties that combined to produce showa are different -- as is the fact that Hoshino was relating the incident and gave credit for the accidental breeding to another breeder.

Interesting, yes?

PS: Thanks, again, for all you do to track down these kinds of oral histories and then try to sort them into a semblance of order. Not an easy task, to be sure.

[RayJordan]

Hi Don,
Very cool stuff. It adds a lot of credence to the idea that something unique would need to be bred to produce a unique new type of koi like a showa.

Most of the stores we hear and the famous geanology charts show a shiro Utsuri or a different kind of Utsuri crossed with a kohaku created the showa. It always seemed to illogical to me that lots of breeders at the time were crossing these same types of koi and only one breeder was able to get a different result.

However one of the stories I heard was that a secret Kawarigoi that had grey skin and small red spots on it's side like a trout was crossed with a Shiro Utsuri to create the orginal showa. Could the koi that Hoshino purchased that was a cross between a Asagi and a Shiro Utsuri been this secret Kawarigoi?

Bob, Do you have the July/Aug 1992 KOI USA Issue. If so may I borrow it please. Thank You.

[farne230]

I just received Harald Bachmann "Koi 1" & Koi 2" publication and looked up what he had to say, since this was just published.

The story is much as stated above (page 143 "Koi 1"): "The first Showa Sanshoku were porduced by Jukichi Hoshino (Jintaro Koi Farm at Ouchi) from Takezawone (nowadays Yamakoshi). He crossed a Shinada Ki Utsuri (originating from Kashiwazaki) with a Kohaku whose origin is no longer known today. The showa from this pairing had yellow-brown coloration. It was Tomiji Kobayashi, the owner of a textile factory in Nakago-cho, Tochio City, Niigata, who first used a Yagozen Kohaku as an outcross and thus produced the Kobayashi Showa, still famous today."

[RayJordan]

Hi Bob,
I have those books on order. Yes, that is the typical explaination of the origin of the orginal showa.