Male Sanke – Yagenji Koi Farm
Taisho Sanke, usually just called Sanke, takes the red-on-white elegance of Kohaku and punctuates it with crisp black (sumi). The Sanke you see today is a balance of three colors that each have to be right.
Origin and history
Sanke takes its name from the Taisho era (1912–1926), when the tri-color pattern was first recognized and shown in Japan. Like nearly all nishikigoi, its roots are in the mountain villages of Yamakoshi and Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, where rice farmers first noticed and kept colored mutations of the black food carp (magoi) in the early 1800s. Sanke was built on Kohaku bloodlines, so its hi has the same standards. Modern lines were refined by breeders such as Torazo Kawakami (the Torazo line), Jinbei, Sadazo and Matsunosuke, and later by leading farms including Dainichi and Matsunosuke.
Color and pattern
A Sanke is a Kohaku-style fish with sumi. The white should be clean, the hi deep and even, and the sumi a lacquer-like ink black. In Sanke the sumi sits on the body, on both the white (tsubo-sumi) and the hi (kasane-sumi). Traditionally there is no sumi on the head. Black stripes in the pectoral fins (tejima) are common and welcome. Unlike Showa, the pectoral fins have no solid black base. The sumi should accent the hi pattern without overwhelming it, usually concentrated along the shoulder and back.
In your collection
Gosanke are the backbone of any serious collection and the varieties most judges and breeders measure everything else against. Their colors develop over years. Hi deepens and sumi surfaces and settles as the fish matures, so a young Gosanke is bought partly on its potential: skin quality, the thickness of the hi, and the body it is likely to grow into.
What collectors look for
- A Kohaku-quality hi pattern underneath, which comes first
- Small to medium sumi that is glossy, even and well spread, mostly above the lateral line
- A clean white head with no sumi
- Fine, few tejima stripes in the fins
- Sumi that has finished developing and is stable, because young Sanke sumi often keeps changing
