Yet again Another bit of valuable information From Mike ....
Inspired by Rob F and written by the Late Great Ray Jordan himself ...
Ogon (Oh’ gone) translates to golden in Japanese. The history of the Ogon
is one of the more interesting in the development of koi varieties.
In 1921, Sawata Aoki who was a poor rice and carp farmer in Yamakoshi
heard about a very special carp with streaks of gold that had been caught
by a fisherman in another village.Sawata felt compelled to see this
carp so he walked 20 miles across the mountains to where the carp was
being kept in a pen. The small black carp had a golden metallic shine at
the base of the dorsal fin.
Sawata was so captivated that he bought it and carried it home in a smallwooden tub. Sawata decided to use this unusual carp to develop a brand
new type of carp that he hoped would be golden colored all over its body.
Sawata allowed the koi to grow a few years until he decided it was large enough
to risk breeding. Over the next 25 years Sawata selected the offspring with the most
golden shine to breed to each other and gradually over many years more and more
golden metallic color emerged. During World War II times were very hard for Sawata and his family.
There was no money to buy food for his baby carp so he would catch insects all day and chew them
into tiny bits to feed his baby koi. The people in his village believed he was crazy. It was reported
that he suffered terrible debilitating headaches. Later in life he said that only when he was sitting by his pond watching his special golden carp did he feel any relief from the headaches he suffered.
In 1947 Sawata heard about a famous female koi of a type called shiro-fuji. This was a white carp
with a silvery metallic shining head reminiscent of the snow cap on Mt. Fuji. He became convinced that this certain carp was just what he needed to complete his dream. But he could not afford the small fortune of 60 yen necessary to buy it. Sawata’s daughter,Kinuko, was a nurse and she had saved exactly 60 yen and presented her father with the money.Sawata crossed his best golden male koi with the shiro-fuji female and prayed for the results he dreamed about for almost 30 years. By the end of that summer there were two special baby koi out of this spawn that
developed a bright shining golden sheen all over their bodies. They were also twice the size of their brothers and sisters.
These were the very first koi to be called ogons.Sawata never benefited financially from
his creation. Later another colored carp breeder, Takehira Hoshide would
acquire Sawata’s ogons and develop a more refined brightly colored carp that
would be called Yamabuki (Yah mah boo key) Ogon. The first of these 2nd
generation ogons sold for as much as 20,000 yen and made Hoshide very
wealthy.
Sawata’s ogons were the source for creating all the Hikari (metallic) varieties
that we know today. After Kohaku the Ogon is perhaps the next most significant variety in terms of
producing so many of the types of koi. Ogons were some of the first colored carp to reach true jumbo size.Modern Ogons come in many different colors and varieties. Ogons are shown in Hikari Muji Mono (metallic single color) class.
Inspired by Rob F and written by the Late Great Ray Jordan himself ...
Ogon (Oh’ gone) translates to golden in Japanese. The history of the Ogon
is one of the more interesting in the development of koi varieties.
In 1921, Sawata Aoki who was a poor rice and carp farmer in Yamakoshi
heard about a very special carp with streaks of gold that had been caught
by a fisherman in another village.Sawata felt compelled to see this
carp so he walked 20 miles across the mountains to where the carp was
being kept in a pen. The small black carp had a golden metallic shine at
the base of the dorsal fin.
Sawata was so captivated that he bought it and carried it home in a smallwooden tub. Sawata decided to use this unusual carp to develop a brand
new type of carp that he hoped would be golden colored all over its body.
Sawata allowed the koi to grow a few years until he decided it was large enough
to risk breeding. Over the next 25 years Sawata selected the offspring with the most
golden shine to breed to each other and gradually over many years more and more
golden metallic color emerged. During World War II times were very hard for Sawata and his family.
There was no money to buy food for his baby carp so he would catch insects all day and chew them
into tiny bits to feed his baby koi. The people in his village believed he was crazy. It was reported
that he suffered terrible debilitating headaches. Later in life he said that only when he was sitting by his pond watching his special golden carp did he feel any relief from the headaches he suffered.
In 1947 Sawata heard about a famous female koi of a type called shiro-fuji. This was a white carp
with a silvery metallic shining head reminiscent of the snow cap on Mt. Fuji. He became convinced that this certain carp was just what he needed to complete his dream. But he could not afford the small fortune of 60 yen necessary to buy it. Sawata’s daughter,Kinuko, was a nurse and she had saved exactly 60 yen and presented her father with the money.Sawata crossed his best golden male koi with the shiro-fuji female and prayed for the results he dreamed about for almost 30 years. By the end of that summer there were two special baby koi out of this spawn that
developed a bright shining golden sheen all over their bodies. They were also twice the size of their brothers and sisters.
These were the very first koi to be called ogons.Sawata never benefited financially from
his creation. Later another colored carp breeder, Takehira Hoshide would
acquire Sawata’s ogons and develop a more refined brightly colored carp that
would be called Yamabuki (Yah mah boo key) Ogon. The first of these 2nd
generation ogons sold for as much as 20,000 yen and made Hoshide very
wealthy.
Sawata’s ogons were the source for creating all the Hikari (metallic) varieties
that we know today. After Kohaku the Ogon is perhaps the next most significant variety in terms of
producing so many of the types of koi. Ogons were some of the first colored carp to reach true jumbo size.Modern Ogons come in many different colors and varieties. Ogons are shown in Hikari Muji Mono (metallic single color) class.
