Why the World's Treasures Came to Rest in Japan

In 1987 a Tokyo insurer paid £25 million at Christie's in London for one of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers, about US$40 million at the time and a record, and carried it home to hang in its own museum. The painting is still there. That single purchase is the clearest picture of a pattern that runs through four decades of Japanese collecting: beautiful things from every corner of the world arrived in Japan in extraordinary numbers, and once they arrived, they were kept. Gold and platinum jewellery, Swiss watches, Parisian leather, New York silver and Ginza pearls now rest in Japanese drawers, boxes and cabinets in a condition that collectors abroad struggle to match. This essay sets out why.

Our thesis is simple to state and long to prove: three tides and one temperament. An old metal country, a flood of arrivals during the strong-currency years, and a slow release through a law-bound pre-owned trade, all governed by a national habit of care. Read it alongside its four companions: Gold in Japan, from Sado to the kihei chain; Okachimachi, Tokyo's jewellery quarter; Ginza and the watch; and Kept in the box.

Contents

• An island of gold, in legend and in fact
• The arrival tide: houses come to Tokyo
• Strong money, long queues
• The release tide: a law-bound second life
• The temperament of keeping
• A platinum nation
• Pearls, quartz and the makers at home
• Why Tokyo rewards the hunt today
• Craft and curation
• The houses in our rooms
• Fun facts for the cabinet
• Frequently asked questions

An island of gold, in legend and in fact

Zipangu

Europe first imagined Japan as a treasure house. In the text of Marco Polo's travels preserved in the Toyo Bunko collection, the island he called Cipangu is a place whose gold lies in the islands themselves and the lord's great palace is "entirely roofed with fine gold", much as European churches were roofed with lead.

"The quantity of gold they have is endless."

Marco Polo, on Cipangu, in The Book of Ser Marco Polo

Polo never set foot in Japan, and his palace is legend. Yet the legend had consequences: his book persuaded Europeans that a land of gold lay at the eastern edge of the world, and Columbus sailed west partly in hope of reaching it.

The Great Buddha's gilding

The legend rested on something real. Gold was first discovered in Japan in 749, in river deposits in Oshu in the north-east of Honshu. About 439 kilograms of the gold that covered the Great Buddha of Nara, completed in 752, came from Oshu. Between the eighth and sixteenth centuries Japan produced about 255 tonnes of gold, roughly five per cent of the world's estimated output before the California gold rush.

Silver for a third of the world

Silver made the larger mark. The Iwami Ginzan mine in Shimane was developed in 1526 by the merchant Kamiya Jutei and worked for almost four centuries until 1923. In the early 1600s Japan as a whole produced about 200 tonnes of silver a year, by one estimate a third of world output; Iwami itself yielded about 38 tonnes a year at its peak, and its old shafts and the town that served them joined the World Heritage List in 2007. The gold mines of Sado followed the same arc and joined the World Heritage List on 27 July 2024. A country that has handled precious metal for thirteen centuries learns to respect it, and that respect runs through everything that follows. The full story of the metal is in our companion essay, Gold in Japan.

The arrival tide: houses come to Tokyo

The department store as threshold

Before the great European houses opened their own doors in Japan, they came in through the department store, an institution with deep roots in Tokyo. Echigo-ya, the kimono shop that became Mitsukoshi, was founded in 1673; ten years later it began selling over the counter for cash, so that a customer could pay and carry a purchase home at once. Its main building in Nihonbashi dates from 1914. For three centuries the Japanese department store has trained customers to expect fixed quality, exact service and immaculate wrapping, and it was through these floors that foreign luxury first reached most Japanese hands.

Hermès and the Seibu years

Hermès is the clearest example. From 1964 the house was represented in Japan by the Seibu group, first in Tokyo and then in Osaka. Three stores opened in 1978, a store with its own atelier followed a year later, and in 2001 the house created Hermès Japan and opened Maison Hermès, Renzo Piano's tower of glass blocks in Ginza. By the first quarter of 2004 Japan accounted for nearly a third of Hermès's worldwide sales: 94.5 million euros out of 314.5 million in a single quarter. Our Hermès rooms hold the result: carrés, small leather, Rodeo charms and bags bought across those decades.

Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Bulgari and Chrome Hearts

Louis Vuitton opened its first store in Japan in Kioicho, Tokyo, in 1978, the long story told in Louis Vuitton and Japan. Tiffany's first presence was the Tiffany Salon inside Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi in 1972, though the bond is older: the first Tiffany store in New York, in 1837, sold objects from Japan, and in the late nineteenth century the chief designer Edward C. Moore brought Japanese decorative techniques into the house's silver. Bulgari opened its Ginza Tower in December 2007, ten floors that held the largest Bulgari store in the world and the headquarters of Bulgari Japan. Chrome Hearts chose Minami-Aoyama for its second boutique anywhere, in 1999, and makes most of its eyewear in Japan.

Year	House	What happened in Japan
1673	Echigo-ya (Mitsukoshi)	Kimono shop founded; over-the-counter cash sales from 1683
1894	Hattori (Seiko)	Watch and clock shop with a clock tower in Ginza 4-chome
1899	Mikimoto	First pearl shop opens in Ginza
1964	Hermès	Represented by the Seibu group in Tokyo, then Osaka
1972	Tiffany & Co.	Tiffany Salon opens in Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi
1978	Louis Vuitton	First store in Japan, Kioicho, Tokyo
1999	Chrome Hearts	Second boutique worldwide, Minami-Aoyama
2001	Hermès	Hermès Japan founded; Maison Hermès opens in Ginza
2007	Bulgari	Ginza Tower, then the house's largest store

Strong money, long queues

The Plaza Accord

On 22 September 1985, at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the finance ministers of France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to bring the dollar down. They succeeded quickly: between September 1985 and February 1987 the dollar lost as much as 35 per cent of its value against the Japanese currency. For a Japanese household, a watch from Geneva or a bag from Paris became markedly more affordable within two years, and the habit of travelling abroad to buy them took hold. The purchases were not only for the buyers themselves: in a country of chugen and seibo gifts, a jewel or a scarf from Paris was also a present, and presents are kept.

The bubble years

Stronger money met an economy that was inflating at home. The asset bubble ran from 1986 to 1991. The Nikkei 225 touched 38,957.44 on 29 December 1989; land in Ginza, the most expensive district, peaked in the same year, and the grounds of the Imperial Palace were estimated to be worth more than all the real estate in California. It was in this mood that the Sunflowers came to Tokyo, and in this mood that ordinary salaried families learned the names of the Place Vendôme.

The effect on the great houses was visible on their own pavements. Writing in 1996, the journalist Stewart Toy found Japanese consumers accounting for half of Louis Vuitton's worldwide sales, and the house running 35 stores in Japan with another on the way.

"The company's main Paris store on swank Avenue Montaigne bustled with foreign tourists, nearly all of them Japanese."

Stewart Toy, Cigar Aficionado, Autumn 1996

Most of those purchases came home in a box, with its receipt, its card and its dust bag, to a household that would keep all four.

The release tide: a law-bound second life

After the bubble

The bubble burst in early 1992. By the end of August 1992 the Nikkei had fallen to 14,309, and it would reach a post-bubble low of 7,862 on 11 March 2003. Through the long deflation that followed, the jewellery, watches and leather bought in the strong years did not leave Japan; they began, slowly, to change hands inside it. The large pre-owned houses of Tokyo say as much: the depth of Japan's supply of branded goods, in their account, comes from how much Japanese buyers acquired overseas in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

A law written in 1949

That second life runs on rails laid long before the bubble. The Secondhand Goods Business Act, Act No. 108 of 28 May 1949, exists "to prevent theft and other crimes and contribute to the prompt recovery of losses". Anyone trading in pre-owned goods needs a licence handled through the local police; must confirm the identity of the person they acquire from; must record each transaction, with the article and its characteristics, and keep that register for three years; and must report anything suspicious to the police at once. The result is a pre-owned trade with a paper trail, which is a large part of why collectors abroad trust a piece that has passed through Japan.

A common language of condition

Alongside the law grew a shared vocabulary for condition. Japanese pre-owned houses describe pieces with letter grades, a convention rather than a statute, explained fully in Japanese condition ranks, explained. A collector in Milan or Melbourne can read the same letters and know, before opening the box, roughly what is inside.

Grade	What it usually means
N / S	New or unused; N often with every original accessory
SA	Near unused: worn once or twice, wear visible only on close inspection
A	Light use, well kept; small scratches or rubbing
AB	Between A and B: use visible, still attractive and fully working
B	Visible use: rubbing at corners and handles, marks on hardware
C	Heavy use, damage or repairs

A trade that keeps growing

The second life is now an industry in its own right. Japan's reuse economy reached a record size in 2024, almost three times its 2009 level, and branded goods within it grew by 19.4 per cent in 2023 alone. Tokyo's Omotesando has been described as a mecca for visitors seeking pre-owned branded pieces.

The temperament of keeping

Currency and law explain why so much arrived and how it moves. They do not explain the condition. For that, look at how Japanese owners live with beautiful things. The fuller account is in Kept in the box; here are its four roots.

The box that vouches

Japan has long treated the container as part of the object. A tomobako is the wooden box made for a tea bowl or a vase, inscribed by the maker or by an authority who vouches for it. The Toledo Museum of Art holds one for a tea bowl by Kawai Kanjiro, inscribed with the name of the glaze and signed "Kawai, Takeichi authenticates". A culture that keeps the box of a tea bowl for generations keeps the box of a Rolex too, with its papers, tags and the green card folded inside. Our guide What makes a full set explains why that matters to value.

Gift, wrap and the noshi

Twice a year, in the chugen season of early July to mid-August and the seibo season of mid to late December, Japanese households send formal gifts. They arrive in folded paper tied with mizuhiki cord, with a small paper noshi in the upper right corner to signify an auspicious occasion, and department stores give whole floors to them. A society that practises presentation this carefully raises owners who would never throw away the box a necklace came in.

Mottainai

Mottainai is the regret felt when the full value of something is not put to good use. When the Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai carried the word to the United Nations, she explained that it held all four Rs at once: reduce, reuse, recycle and repair. For a jewel or a watch, mottainai means wearing it on the right occasion, servicing it, mending it, and never letting it languish broken in a drawer.

Honest streets

Care needs safety. In 2024 Tokyo residents handed a record 4.49 billion in the national currency, about US$30 million, of lost cash to the police, and about 72 per cent of it found its way back to its owners. In a city like that, a fine watch is worn on the train and stored at home in its box rather than locked away or sold in haste.

A platinum nation

Japanese taste did not simply absorb foreign jewellery; it bent it toward one metal. In 1891 Muramatsu Mansaburo became the first in Japan to melt platinum. By 1910 Mikimoto's platinum jewellery was an elite emblem, and the Imperial household commissioned platinum tiaras and regalia. The metal then wove itself into national life. Tenshodo showed a jewelled platinum clip as early as 1893. In 1952 platinum imports were freed before those of gold and diamonds, and in the late 1950s Crown Princess Michiko wore a platinum tiara in a wedding procession watched on television across the country. When De Beers arrived in Japan in 1965 and introduced the diamond engagement ring, the ring that carried the stone was, almost by default, platinum. In 2024, 92 per cent of engagement rings and 82 per cent of wedding bands sold in Japan were platinum.

"Japan leads the globe in per capita consumption of platinum jewellery," write Hisako Hankinson and Zhenzhen Liu in that issue, quoting the saying that "good jewellery is platinum jewellery". The practical result for a collector is a deep reserve of Pt900 and Pt850 pieces, stamped and often hallmarked by the Japan Mint, which we explain in Japanese gold and platinum marks.

Pearls, quartz and the makers at home

Japan did not only import treasures; it made them, and the makers set the standard of care for everything else.

Mikimoto's pearl

On 11 July 1893, after five years of farming oysters on Ago Bay, Mikimoto Kokichi produced hemispherical cultured pearls. He patented the method in 1896 and opened his first shop in Ginza in 1899. The cultured pearl changed the world's jewellery boxes; the Akoya strand remains a Japanese specialty, read in our guide to pearl types.

The clock on the corner

In 1894 Hattori Kintaro opened a shop for watches and clocks at Ginza 4-chome and insisted on a clock tower as a service to the street. The present building was completed in 1932; its weight-driven clock was converted to a Seiko quartz movement in 1966, and in 2022 the building was renamed SEIKO HOUSE. The corner and its street are the subject of Ginza and the watch.

Grand Seiko and the Astron

Grand Seiko was born in 1960 with its own accuracy standard, first +6 to −3 seconds a day and from 1969 +5 to −3. The 44GS of 1967 set the design language the house still follows, and the rivalry with King Seiko is told in King versus Grand. In 1969 Seiko released the Quartz-Astron, the first quartz wristwatch sold to the public, accurate to within five seconds a month; its story is in Seiko Astron. A nation that builds watches to that tolerance knows how to look after a Patek Philippe.

Why Tokyo rewards the hunt today

Density

Four decades of arrivals and three decades of careful release have left Tokyo with more fine jewellery and watches per street than almost anywhere. The jewellery workshops and wholesalers of Okachimachi, the watch houses of Ginza and the specialist cabinets of Nakano Broadway each hold a different layer, mapped in Okachimachi, Tokyo's jewellery quarter.

Honest grading

Because the law requires records and the trade shares a grading language, a description from Tokyo tends to mean what it says. An A grade bag has light wear; an SA watch has been worn once or twice. That predictability is worth as much to a collector as the piece itself.

Complete sets

The keeping habit means pieces surface with their boxes, guarantee cards, booklets, spare links and even the shop's original bag. For watches in particular, completeness can decide value, and Japan supplies complete sets in quantities rare elsewhere.

A favourable exchange rate

On 2 July 2024 the Japanese currency weakened to 161.6 to the dollar, a level last crossed in December 1986. The same exchange rate that sent Japanese buyers abroad in 1987 now brings the world to Tokyo, and the pieces bought then are ready to travel again.

Craft and curation

A Japanese owner does not only keep a foreign object; very often, a Japanese hand restores it. Watchmakers, polishers, stringers and leather menders work across Tokyo to the same exacting standard as the makers in our essay on Japanese craft philosophy. When a piece is mended visibly, the Japanese instinct is to honour the repair, as in kintsugi, rather than hide it.

Curation is the final layer. Japan's taste has always been selective, from the tea room to the select shop, and the same eye that chooses one bowl for a season chooses one watch for a lifetime. Our own Luxury Archive is built on that principle: fewer pieces, read closely, described honestly.

The houses in our rooms

These are the houses whose pieces Japan has kept especially well, with the guides that help you read them.

House	What Japanese owners kept well	Read more
Hermès	Carrés folded in their boxes, small leather, Rodeo charms from six decades of Japanese custom	Rodeo and Chaîne d'Ancre
Chanel	Brooches and earrings of the Lagerfeld years, often with case and card	Earrings and brooches
Louis Vuitton	Monogram and Epi bought in the Kioicho and bubble years	Louis Vuitton and Japan
Cartier	Tank and Panthère watches in gold, with boxes and papers	Collectible watches
Rolex	Sports and dress references kept as full sets	The Submariner
Patek Philippe	Calatrava and Nautilus worn lightly and serviced	Calatrava and Nautilus
Audemars Piguet	Royal Oak references with intact bracelets	Royal Oak references
Van Cleef & Arpels	Alhambra clovers in gold and stone	The Alhambra
Tiffany & Co.	Sterling silver from the Mitsukoshi decades	Tiffany silver
Bulgari	Gold jewellery and watches of the Ginza years	Gold and platinum marks
Harry Winston	Platinum and diamond pieces in a platinum-loving country	Gold and platinum marks
Chrome Hearts	Silver and gold since the Aoyama boutique of 1999	Chrome Hearts silver
Seiko and Grand Seiko	Domestic references that seldom left Japan	King versus Grand

Fun facts for the cabinet

• About 439 kilograms of northern Japanese gold covered the Great Buddha of Nara when it was completed in 752.
• In the early 1600s Japan produced about a third of the world's silver.
• Mitsukoshi began as a kimono shop called Echigo-ya in 1673.
• The first platinum ever melted in Japan was melted in 1891, by Muramatsu Mansaburo.
• Mikimoto's first cultured pearls date from 11 July 1893; his Ginza shop opened in 1899.
• The clock on the Ginza 4-chome corner has run on a Seiko quartz movement since 1966.
• The Quartz-Astron of 1969 kept time to within five seconds a month.
• In 2024 Tokyo's residents handed in about US$30 million of lost cash, and most of it went home.

Where accounts disagree

The silver figure deserves care: the share of world output usually quoted for the early seventeenth century belongs to Japan as a whole, not to Iwami alone, and the explanation that today's pre-owned supply was bought abroad during the bubble is an industry account rather than a measured statistic, though every number in this essay points the same way.

Hunting well in Japan

Ask for the box and the papers, and value a complete set. Read the grade, then read the photographs. Look for the hallmark on gold and platinum, the serial and reference on a watch, the date stamp or code on leather. And allow time: the pieces that have rested longest in Japanese cabinets are often the last to appear.

Frequently asked questions

Why are pre-owned luxury pieces from Japan often in such good condition?

A combination of habits and rules: owners keep boxes and papers, use pieces carefully and service them, and the pre-owned trade works under a 1949 law that requires records and identity checks, with a shared grading language for condition.

Why did jewellery and watches arrive in Japan in such numbers?

Japanese buying power rose sharply after the Plaza Accord of 1985, during the bubble years from 1986 to 1991, and the great houses had already built networks through department stores and their own boutiques.

Why is so much Japanese jewellery made of platinum?

Platinum became a status metal in Japan in the early twentieth century and remains the bridal metal of choice: in 2024, 92 per cent of engagement rings sold in Japan were platinum.

What does a Japanese condition grade such as SA mean?

SA is near unused: worn once or twice, with wear visible only on close inspection. Our guide to condition ranks covers every letter.

Can I ask for a specific piece that is not in your rooms?

Yes. Describe it through a private request and our Tokyo team will look for it.

Further reading

• Japanese Maximalism: five thousand years of gold, colour and excess
• Furugi: how Japan became the world's vintage capital
• Gold in Japan, from Sado to the kihei chain
• Kept in the box: how Japan cares for jewellery and watches
• Okachimachi, Tokyo's jewellery quarter
• Ginza and the watch