Friday - final day for Koelle Zoo and 't Vingeling

Friday was the final day in Niigata for both Koelle Zoo - www.koelle-zoo.de - and 't Vingeling - www.vingeling.nl.

In the morning I joined up with the Koelle Zoo guys who were planning to wrap up their buying at Marusei where they week had started back on Monday - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/692.  Having done the rounds of Niigata and purchased from a variety of breeders, always mindful of what was at Marusei, they knew that they would be able to fulfil their requirements having seen them first thing in the week.

When I visited Marusei a week earlier with Jeroen Van Keuelen - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/689 - at the base of the stairs to the ponds which, as mentioned previously are situated above ground, were 2 essentially dead looking bonsai trees of over 60 years of age.  Over the course of the week these 2 apple trees have started to come to life.  Unfortunately their location doesn't provide a particularly aesthetically pleasing backdrop.

The floating holding nets a sure sign of a brisk week's trading at Marusei.  The nets hold just those Koi which have been hand selected such as those by 't Vingeling earlier in the week - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/701.  Other ponds are sold completely where customers have bought the whole pond.  New stocks will replenish these ponds from Marusei's other facilities.

Having agreed a price on some nisai Yoshiyuki Hirasawa, his wife and father Seitaro Hirasawa started bowling up a sample box of the type of Koi they would supply.

That deal would conclude the week's core buying unless they stumbled upon something special elsewhere to place in one of Koelle Zoo's 11 stores across Germany.

Earlier in the week I mentioned Hironori Hirasawa, the younger son of Seitaro Hirasawa.  As is tradition in Japan the family assets, including home and business, are inherited by the eldest son when the father passes away.  As such the huge Marusei operation will one day be left to Yoshiyuki Hirasawa.  Hironori however has his own little 'empire' in a polythene tunnel to the right as you enter the main Marusei outlet where he produces some excellent examples of a number of varieties.  The farm is known as Maruhiro and you will often hear Hironori addressed personally as Maruhiro - very confusing at times! In this link you can find some examples of the Koi he produces at the bottom of the page - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/304.

Hironori san bowled up some examples of the sort of Koi that he thought may be of interest to Koelle Zoo.

Whilst some of the Koi were of potential interest the prices quoted meant that a deal could not be done on this occasion.

At the same time we were at Marusei Rob de Vos arrived with 't Vingeling, their schedule for the rest of the day to visit Nogami, Hoshikin and Dainichi.  I arranged to switch groups for the afternoon.  Unfortunately the visit to Nogami couldn't be made.  Johan and Aty wanted to see the tosai selections available at Hoshikin, the same Koi you can see in this link - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/685.

From there we made the short journey to Dainichi's tosai house where Rob had to select some tosai for a customer.  With the pond already netted on arrival Rob set about selecting some Showa that met the customers brief.  With a writhing mass of red, white and black before your eyes spotting a possible purchase once is easy, netting it first time tricky, ever seeing it again almost impossible!

With 30 or so picked out initially they were whittled down to 10 before a couple more examples were picked out of the net to make this final 12.

Perhaps my personal pick of the bunch.

That ended the day for 't Vingeling.  On meeting up with the Koelle Zoo guys in the evening for dinner I learned that some Showa were purchased at Dainichi and a Kohaku at Hoshikin.

A really enjoyable week with both Johan and Aty and the guys from Koelle Zoo.

To find out how your trip to Niigata can appear on Niigata-Nishikigoi.com click here - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/200.