Japan Post issues three Hokusai stamps for International Letter-Writing Week

Japan Post placed its 2026 International Letter-Writing Week stamps on sale on 6 October, continuing an annual series that Japan has issued since 1958. This year's programme consists of three gummed stamps denominated at 15 yen, 120 yen and 160 yen, each reproducing a work by Katsushika Hokusai from the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. The issue connects the practical rates used for international correspondence with a long-running postal campaign promoting cultural exchange and peace through letter writing.

The 15-yen stamp reproduces Hokusai's study commonly rendered in English as Cuckoo and Azalea. It differs in format and function from the two landscape stamps: Japan Post explains that 15 yen represents the difference between the 100-yen international airmail postcard rate and the 85-yen domestic postcard rate. For correspondents using a domestic postcard for overseas airmail, the stamp therefore supplies the precise additional postage while also providing the smallest-value item in the commemorative set.

The 120-yen stamp uses Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: Mitsui Shop at Surugacho in Edo. The composition looks along the roofs and busy building works of the commercial district toward Mount Fuji, bringing together urban Edo and the distant mountain. Its 120-yen denomination pays the minimum airmail letter rate from Japan to destinations in postal Zones 1 and 2. Issued in sheets of ten arranged in two rows of five, the design is repeated across a wide horizontal sheet headed in Japanese and English for International Letter-Writing Week 2026.

The 160-yen value features Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: Fuji Seen from the Senju Pleasure Quarter. It serves the minimum airmail letter rate to Zone 5 destinations. Together, the two landscape values give the issue an international-postage purpose rather than simply attaching Hokusai imagery to unrelated denominations. Japan Post notes that the 140-yen minimum rate for Zones 3 and 4 is already available as a regular stamp and is not duplicated in this special issue.

All three works are held by the Tokyo National Museum, with imagery supplied through the museum's image archives. Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is internationally recognised for presenting the mountain from changing locations, seasons and human settings. Selecting two less routinely reproduced views, rather than relying only on the Great Wave, gives the 2026 issue a more specific connection to the breadth of the series. The bird-and-flower subject on the 15-yen value also shows a different part of Hokusai's practice beyond the famous landscape prints.

Each denomination is sold only in complete sheets of ten. The 15-yen sheet costs 150 yen, the 120-yen sheet 1,200 yen and the 160-yen sheet 1,600 yen; a set containing one sheet of each has a face value of 2,950 yen. The 15-yen stamp measures 25.5 by 21.5 millimetres, while the two landscape stamps measure 28 by 38.5 millimetres. Their sheet sizes are correspondingly different: 76.5 by 129 millimetres for the 15-yen value and 93.5 by 222.5 millimetres for each of the two higher values.

Japan Post stamp designer Akira Tamaki adapted the museum works for the three postal designs. The stamps were printed by five-colour offset. Japan Post produced two million copies of the 15-yen stamp, equivalent to 200,000 sheets, and one million copies of each of the 120-yen and 160-yen values, equivalent to 100,000 sheets per denomination. These figures make the small-format supplementary value the most widely printed component of the issue, reflecting its separate role in converting domestic postcards for international use.

The stamps went on sale from 9 a.m. on 6 October at post offices across Japan, subject to local ordering and stock, as well as through the Japan Post online shop and by mail order from Ginza Post Office. Japan Post set 6 November as the mail-order application deadline, although it may close ordering earlier if the available quantity is