When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
A working origami collection in a shallow metal tin, the lid printed Edo origami in white brush script across a blue ground. Inside are sealed packs of period paper including a Nakamura colour foil set priced at twenty yen, an animal printed pack, loose coloured sheets, rolls of gold and silver foil paper, printed folding diagrams including a giraffe sequence, and a quantity of already folded models: cranes, boxes and a tall standing form.
The twenty yen price on that sealed pack is the most informative thing in the tin. It places the paper decades back, to a period when a pack of origami sheets cost roughly what a postcard did. The folded models matter too, because folded paper is almost never kept. Origami is a process art: the folding is the event and the result usually gets unfolded, given away or thrown out. A tin where somebody saved both the paper they had not used and the models they had already made is a record of a particular person\'s practice rather than a craft supply. The word origami itself is younger than the activity, coined in the late nineteenth century from the verbs to fold and paper, replacing older regional names.
The tin is sound with surface scratching and light denting to the lid. The sealed packs remain sealed. The loose sheets show edge toning and light creasing, and the folded models are intact with the soft handling wear paper picks up over decades. Contents are exactly as photographed.
Anyone who folds will understand what old Japanese paper is worth. It behaves differently from modern stock under a crease, and you cannot buy that behaviour new.
