Oblong Quarto album (ca. 13.9x21.3 cm). 30 paper album leaves. With 62 mounted original gelatin silver photographs, mostly ca. 11.2x6.6 cm (4 ¼ x 2 ½ in), and 13 real-photo postcards ca. 6.7x10.7 cm (2 ½ x 4 ¼ in). Postcards with English captions in the negatives and the stamp of “Frasher’s Focus Photos.” Period custom-made wooden album fastened with a cord; front board featuring a carved generic title “Photos,” a silhouette of a bear or wolf, and “Yosemite Natl Park” embossed on a leather label in the lower right corner. Lower part of the letter “P” in the title “Photos” missing; mild silvering to the photographs and a damp stain in the upper right corner of the final leaf, otherwise a very good album with strong, interesting images.

Historically interesting collection of original gelatin silver photographs, documenting an overland excursion to Yosemite National Park and Emerald Bay State Park by a Japanese family of passengers from the SS Taiyō Maru in the 1920s-1930s.

The SS Taiyō Maru was a prominent ocean liner operated by the Japanese shipping line Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) on the trans-Pacific route connecting Yokohama, Honolulu, and San Francisco. Originally launched in 1911 as the German vessel Cap Finisterre, the ship was ceded to Japan as war reparations following World War I. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it served as a vital link between Asia and the US West Coast before being torpedoed and sunk during World War II.

The album contains seventy-five vibrant vernacular photographs and postcards documenting Japanese family’s journey to the California Sierra. About thirty lively candid scenes portray the compiler and his/her family picnicking, swimming in Lake Tahoe, wading in the shallows, and posing for portraits with fellow passengers in nature, on California streets, and on the deck of the SS Taiyō Maru. The rest of the images feature iconic vistas of Yosemite National Park (Overhanging Rock and Lower Yosemite Fall) and Emerald Bay State Park and its environs (Emerald Bay, Eagle Falls, Mt. Tallac, Angora Lakes, Fallen Leaf Lake, Cave Rock, Fannette Island, and the Pioneer Monument at Donner Lake). The latter includes thirteen captioned real-photo postcards by Burton Frasher, a prolific Ponoma-based postcard photographer renowned for his extensive documentation of the American West. His "Real Photo" postcards remain highly prized for their exceptional detail, as they were printed directly onto photographic paper using silver-halide chemistry rather than mass-produced as lithographs.

Overall, historically interesting collection of original gelatin silver photographs, documenting an overland excursion to Yosemite National Park and Emerald Bay State Park by a Japanese family of passengers from the SS Taiyō Maru in the 1920s-1930s.