was a Japanese businessman, writer and

philatelist Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible ...

Life

Kanai's father was a wealthy Japanese businessman and at the age of five he began his first stamp collection. At 13, he intensified his hobby and while in university founded two stamp collecting clubs. His first degree was in engineering at

Nihon University , abbreviated as , is a private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice, in 1889. The university's name is derived from the Ja ...

after which he studied political economy at

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

. He then worked for the textile machinery factory founded by one of his grandfathers. Later, he became president of a number of companies such as the Kanai Heavy Industry Co.

Philately

At first, Kanai was a general stamp collector but after World War II he specialised in the philately of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and the British colonies. Through philatelic contacts he became aware of and eventually owned a unique collection of the Red and Blue Mauritius "Post Office" stamps, when he procured a total of six pieces of 27 known copies of these valuable stamps, which was the largest ever owned by one person. In 1971, he bought the ''Bordeaux Letter,'' a cover with both the one penny red and two pence blue stamps addressed to Bordeaux, for 120 million yen. At that time this was about 1 million US dollars, equivalent in purchasing power to about 7.5 million US dollars 2023. In 1988, he initially sold the ''Bordeaux Letter''; the balance of the Kanai's Mauritius stamps were sold by David Feldman in 1993 at a Zurich auction. That part of the Kanai collection, being 183 pages of the classic issues of Mauritius, is listed by the

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

as the ''"Most expensive stamp collection"''. He received many awards and worked most recently as Director of the Stamp Museum Kobe.

Awards

* Japanese Medal of Honor: Blue Ribbon * Lichtenstein award 1991 *

Roll of Distinguished Philatelists The Roll of Distinguished Philatelists (RDP) is a Philately, philatelic award of international scale, created by the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain in 1921 to honour those who have advanced philately through research, expertise, or service. ...

1993

Works

* ''Mauritius no kitte: 1847–59'' (). Gaikoku Kitte Kenkyūkai (Ausländische-Briefmarken-Forschungsgesellschaft) Ōsaka, 1976. * ''Hōsun no miryoku'' (). Sōgensha, Ōsaka, 1980. * ''Classic Mauritius: The Locally Printed Postage Stamps''.

Stanley Gibbons The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange specialising in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in London. The company is a major stamp dealer and phila ...

, London, 1981. * ''Hōsun itto'' (). Yūshu Bunka Center (Philatelie-Kulturzentrum), Ōsaka, 1991.

References and sources

External links

David Feldman's 1993 Mauritius auction catalogue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanai, Hiroyuki Japanese philatelists Japanese businesspeople 1925 births 2012 deaths Signatories to the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists Fellows of the Royal Philatelic Society London Waseda University alumni