Are you going to write this up?  It would make a nice piece for Amer Conch.

Tom E


On 2/7/2017 9:50 AM, Leslie Crnkovic wrote:
> Thank you John and Martin,
> Your notes have had me dig deeper into my library... Some interesting information.  And some ealier notes I compiled.
>
> 1963 – Tokio Shikama   Selected Shells of the World in Colours (II).  Hokuryu-Kan Pub., Tokyo.  Japanese, with Latin names (+and dates).
> <> Dispelling the notion that the Japanese do not use common names…
> -----Plate 2, # 4 & 5.  Pleurotomaria (Mikadotrochus) hirasei (Pilsbry, 1903)  [more Japanese text]. Emperor’s Slit Shell.
>
> 1955 - Abbott, R.T., Fred. Bayer Illustrator.  Introducing Sea shells. D. Van Nostrand Co.
> ----Pg. 57,  Hirase’s Pleurotomaria, Perotrochus hirasei Pils.  (C).  [C: Rare, not above $25.]
>
> Rabbit Trail: (previously gathered data)
>
> 1969 - S. Peter Dance  “Rare Shells” University of California Press, 128 pp.
> --- No Citation given for the info below: Wondered where Dance took it from?
> PG 39:  Rare Shells from the Deep Sea:  Shells most coveted by collectors are usually found at depths of 300 fathoms or less.  …in recent years have fishermen realized that a cargo of shells may be more valuable than a cargo of fish ... among those retained were the original specimens of several species of living slit-shells.…Entemnotrochus adansoniana …described as new to science in 1861 - 5 years after the description of the 1st known living slit-shell had been published. In 1875 a third species, Mikadotrochus beyrichi, was discovered in a shell-work shop at Enoshima, Japan; it is now known to live at 20-100 fms. off Enoshima.1  Similarly the first specimen of the largest living slit-shell known, Entemnotrochus rumphii, was discovered in a collection…;  few have been found since described in 1879 - all from very deep water.  The few living species are still taken mostly in fishing nets and with the exception of the commonest, Mikadotrochus hirasei, still command very high prices; indeed they were once known to Japanese fishermen as 'millionaire shells'.   Pg. 39  Footnote  1:  The earliest-known representation of a living slit-shell is contained in Sekiju Musashi's “Mokuhachi-fu” (Illustration of shells), published in 1843; the species illustrated may be Mikadotrochus beyrichi.
>
> Then found:
> 1963 – Bayer, Frederick M.  A New Pleurotomariid Gastropod Trawled in the Straits of Florida by R/V Gerda.  (BMS) Bulletin of Marine Science of the Gulf and Caribbean, Inst. of Marine Sci., U. of Miami, 13(3): 488-492, 1 fig. September.
> - Has an excellent discussion on Pleurotomariids, and comparative data on W. Atlantic species, and M. amabilis n.s.
> - Cites type-species for Genus Mikadotrochus is Pleurotomaria beyrichi Hilgendorf.
> - His reference for Pleurotomaria beyrichi 1st illustrated in "Mokuhachi-fu" is cited as from Kira, 1962.
> See also: 1965 – Bayer, BMS 15(4): 737-796. December. “New Pleurotomariid Gastropods from the Western Atlantic…”
>
> 1962 – Kira, Tesuaki   Shells of the Western Pacific in Color, Volume I.  224 pp., 72 pl. Hardcover. Hoikusha Publishing Ltd., Osaka, Japan.
> ----Page 2, Plate 2, 1. Mikadotrochus beyrichii, Paragraph 2:
> “The species was first described by Hilgendorf in 1877, a German lecturer in the medical school of the Tokyo University, who obtained a specimen from a shell workshop at Enoshima in 1875. But it was later known that a Japanese naturalist, Sekiju Musashi, had illustrated this shell as early as in 1843 in his book 'Mokuhachi-fu' or Illustrations of Shells.  Species of Pleurotomariidae are sometimes called the 'millionaire shell' by Japanese fishermen because of the high price among collectors of earlier days.” Kira.
> - Kira’s 'Mokuhachi-fu' comments are written in the 3rd person, so it is unclear if Kira is the originating written source, but given the global distribution of this book, this is the most probable source for S. Peter Dance’s 1969 “Rare Shells” data.
>
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