Personal Seal (Inkan)

Personal Seal (Inkan)

In Japan, a personal seal instead of your signature is needed in various situations such as purchasing a car or house, making a passbook, or submitting formal documents. Personal seals have two kinds namely, unregistered seals which you can use in daily transactions, and registered seals which you can only use in signing important documents. In this case, unregistered seals can be used to sign papers for receiving packages. Since it’s quite a pain to get an inkpad when using seals, most people use shachihata (self-inking stamps). Although, shachihata cannot be used as registered seals. Registered seals are often designed with characters that are unreadable even to Japanese in order to prevent fake seals from being used. Nowadays, unusual designs for seals such as animals (some of them may not be used as registered seals) have been increasing. It may cost to make your own personal seal but treat it as a remembrance of Japan’s inkan culture.