Posted by Even though it is possible to approximately date a Prima/Aketa ocarina by its stamp, if someone is interested in more accurate information, it is helpful to have additional hints. Today, I will talk about this using the two newest Aketa ocarinas in my collection as an example. These two ocarinas are:
- Aketa MT-8Bb (http://www.theocarinamuseum.com/prima-aketa-ocarinas/aketa-ocarinas/maximaal-mt-8bb/)
- Aketa S-5C (http://www.theocarinamuseum.com/prima-aketa-ocarinas/aketa-ocarinas/aketa-sonnetto-s-5c/)
I bought the MT-8Bb from eBay seller “marshallpba” on January 24, 2019, and it arrived on January 31, 2019. I asked the seller about the history of his ocarinas (I got the Night BC from the same seller) and he told me that he bought them while he worked in Japan between 1993 and 1994. Since he replied with his real name signed, I was able to go to Linkedin and find his profile, which confirms that he was indeed in Japan for one year during that time. That tells us that the Aketa MT-8Bb was made no later than 1994.
Recently, I was able to confirm from multiple sources, primarily Kaori, that during the early to mid 1990s, the Aketa Eb and Bb models were developed and made by Mr. Shoji Aketagawa, son of Mr. Takashi Aketagawa. At that time, as can be seen from the colored pamphlet that came with the MT-8Bb, the following models were being offered by Aketa:
- T-1C
- T-2F
- T-3G
- T-4F (double)
- S-5C
- S-5C
- T-6Eb
- T-8Bb
- T-9G
- T-10F
- T-12C
- T-14C (double)
We are still missing 7, 11, and 13 for whatever reason. A quick note here: According to Kaori, in the later 1950 to later 1960 (the dates are my guess), there were 4F (comparable to 2F) and 6C (comparable to 5C) sold through another distributor. I have a 6C in my collection that I will talk about in a future post.
I bought the S-5C from Tom on January 22, 2019, and it arrived on January 25, 2019. Tom was unsure about the year the ocarina was made and who made it, even though it is well-known that the “Sonetto” model was developed by Mrs. Kazu Aketagawa, wife of Mr. Takashi Aketagawa, who passed away in September of 2017 at the age of 98 (https://d.facebook.com/aketagawamuseum/photos/a.460817090691830/1437094966397366/). Dating “Sonetto” models is very difficult because they always use the same stamp (I don’t know what the animal is).
Assuming the package is original, and since the S-5C is in the same plastic case as the MT-8Bb, they must be from similar time period. And since we already know the date of the MT-8Bb, we can look for other small hints to know when the S-5C was made. There are two such hints, both from the small pamphlets came with the ocarinas. In the MT-8Bb pamphlet,
the “AKETA” logo next to 株式会社 is different from the S-5C.
A quick visit to the Prima Gakki website (http://www.prima-gakki.co.jp/catalog/aketaocarina/) reveals that the logo on the S-5C pamphlet is identical to the current logo, indicating that the S-5C is more recent than the MT-8Bb. From www.aketa.org, we can find some posters as early as 2006 (http://www.aketa.org/MHADVD-1901.html) that uses the same logo, but I was unable to find any examples of the logo in the MT-8Bb pamphlet.
However, there is another hint. On the S-5C pamthlet, a CD by Junji Nakatsuka (中塚純二) was advertised. The title of the CD is “オーヴェルニュの歌”, which translated into “Song of the Auvergne”. Luckily, I was able to locate a webpage (https://tinyurl.com/y3efsgtg) that tells us that the CD was published on February 6, 2000. As a result, we can date the S-5C to no earlier than 2000.
Mystery solved.
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