It is always exciting to watch as a significant collection being offered for the first time.  This rare Japanese plate was one of the significant ones being sold from the Peter Kanze collection of International World plates.  Dick Yourga and Bob Peterson, of Mass were handling the sales.  You can see Dick handling the paper work behind this plate. The prices were not cheap, but that didn't stop some of the more interesting plates from being sold.  A collector from New Zealand with deep pockets bought a pile of plates, including this rare Japanese one.

This plate has had an interesting history.  It was brought over by a US serviceman stationed in Kobe, (the symbol on the plate denotes Hyogo prefecture).  The plate is c1936, according to a tab which is on the mate to this one.  A collector got these plates, plus a number of others from the serviceman,  and these were sold to Dave Wild for a "good price" because he knew Dave collected 1936 dated plates.  (When's the last time you had a collector sell something to you for a "good price" because they want to help our your collecting interests?)  Dave sold the undated one to Peter Kanze who in turn offered it here.  You can bet the price went up each time.

The buyer of this plate, Rolf Greenborough of New Zeleand shipped this, and other plates to his home instead of carrying them on the plane.  Unfortunately the plates were lost en-route.  Because of the significant investment, he hired a private eye to look into the matter.  The story had a happy ending - the plates, including this one, were successfully recovered.  The thief turned out to be someone working for the courier company in New Zealand and stole the plates, intending to sell them at an auction.  Scumbag.  Good thing he was caught.