STUDY ON THE TRANSITION OF IMPORT AND PRICE ON NAIL-ROD IN THE MEIJI ERA SEEN THROUGH ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

 The author has considered the import and price of Western nails since the end of the Edo period, by reading through "Nihon-syoki-shimbun-zensyu", I showed the import situation of Western nails from 1864 to 1873. In the previous article, I showed the price of nails in English paper during this period, and I showed that the earliest nails that could be confirmed to have been imported into Japan at the time were "Nail-rod" and were translated as "kugi-sao" in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how Nail-rod was imported into our country and the price transition after reading the English paper after the period shown in the previous paper, that is, after 1874. The following points were clarified.

 The import of Nail-rod was confirmed until June 1890. In other words, Nail-rod imports are recorded from 1864 to 1890. There were two types of Nail-rod, assorted and small size, and small size was about 20% higher than assorted. The price of Nail-rod was well linked to the price of domestic iron materials in the early Meiji era. The price of Nail-rod has been linked well with the price of Japanese nails since 1874. Nail-rod is a general term for products that are the material for nails, and Westerners continued to use this word regardless of form. On the other hand, until about 1879, the Japanese translated Nail-rod into Kugi-sao and circulated it, from around 1877, it was gradually renamed to Kugi-tetsu.