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Day 6, Thurs, Oct 17
I arrived at the auction site a little early to get another look at the koi and make some notes on the koi I was interested in. Each bidder is checked for Shinkokai Registration and given a bidding number that is painted on a ping-pong paddle. The process is very organized and very, very fast. The breeders chose koi from the show tanks at random and place them in a blue show bowl on a rolling cart. The koi are then staged at the entrance of the auction tent. Each koi is then announced by size, variety, sex, and breeder. A few koi had a reserve price, but most didn’t.

After the announcement of the information about the each koi, the bidding begins as the koi is rolled through the tent between two facing rows of bidders. The auctioneer flips up wooden tablets that have the current price in Yen displayed on it. If you aren’t fluent in Japanese (that’s me) you need to listen and watch very carefully. The auction time was 5 1/2 hours and there were 225 koi sold. That's an average of one sale every minute and 28 seconds. For the record, I only bought one koi by accident and over-bid once. The auctioneer at the time, Mr. Hirashin, realizing that I might not have intended to win the bid, asked if I wanted to remain the high bidder. After looking at the koi I hadn’t seen yet, a beautiful ginrin shiro utsuri, I informed him that I would be happy to remain the high bidder and the koi was mine.

I purchased a total of 46 koi at the auction. The stunning 13-14" kikokuryu bred by Kase went for 740,000 yen. My guess of 500,000 yen made a couple days ago was low. The bidding started at a price over where I wanted to stop bidding. The following photos are of the event:

Opening remarks and instructions by Mr. Izumia (famous for his Yamabuki Ogon).

Breeders pushing the carts with the koi through the gauntlet of biddders

Mr. Isa Hajime, who is known for his beautiful showa, eats lunch during the break from 12:00 to 12:30. In the background are the holding tanks with the information card and photo for each koi hooked on the rail of the tank.

After paying for the koi I purchased, the breeders collected all the number 5 bags, my assigned number, in two show tanks. In the background the breeders are already breaking down the show tanks that were emptied.

Next, one breeder is assigned to check for payment and use a computerized check list to release the koi. As each koi number is called, someone finds the right bag in the show tank and hands the bag to Mr. Hoshino and his son on the back of the truck. The bags are opened and the koi are released into a transport tank on the back on the truck. They found 46 koi and released them in 11 minutes.

With the sun setting on 3 generations of the Hoshino family,
we head back to the farm to treat and release the koi into my holding ponds.