A series of rituals accompanying with the 62nd Sengu of Ise shrine are going to reach the final stage in 2013. The Sengu of Ise has been conducted every 20 years since 1300 years ago. The previous 61th Sengu was conducted in 1993 and various memorial goods were sold then. Those memorial goods, I predict, will be promising targets for some kind of collectors. The memorial items sold in 1993, 1973, 1949 (postponed to 1953), 1929, 1909, …… can be found in Yahoo auctions. Perhaps, numbers of specialized collectors may increase in this field. As regards 1993, existence of various telephone cards symbolized the era. In 1973, the time before last, telephone card had not been sold.
I think 59th will be interesting segment in particular. In Yahoo auctions, a book on 59th is sold for 1,000 yen. At least scholars in 22c will pay for it more than future value of 1,000 yen today. Even in the era of search engines, book would still continue being a contemplated existence for scholars related to history.
