Castle seals and goshuin: separate books, one record

This article covers one thing only: how someone who collects both goshuin and castle seals splits the paper, and keeps the record as one. Where castle seals can be obtained, how each castle handles the date on the sheet, and keeping a record of the castles themselves — a list of the ones you have visited — are all outside it.

Should the record be split, the way the paper is?

Splitting the paper and splitting the record are two separate decisions. On the paper the advice differs depending on who is giving it, so both sides are quoted below. On the record side, one field holding either goshuin or castle seal keeps everything in one place however the paper is split.

Split the record in two as well and a single day ends up in two places. Visit a castle and stop at a nearby shrine on the way, and that day's goshuin goes into one record while the castle seal goes into the other, so working out the order of the day means holding two lists side by side. Keep one record, sorted by date, and everything you received that day sits together.

How is a castle seal described as different from a goshuin?

All three sources quoted here describe a castle seal as a memento of having visited a castle. The wording below is each source's own, in translation, checked on each page in September 2026.

Two things in Shirobito's account are worth carrying into the way you separate the types. The first is the name: the page notes that castles call them all sorts of things — tokaku kinen insho, tojo kinen goshuin, jokakufu, gojoshuin. A name with the word goshuin inside it can still be a castle's commemorative seal. The second is a warning to take particular care not to confuse these with the goshuin of shrines and temples that stand inside castles or on castle sites. Something you received in the same place as the castle can still be a shrine's or a temple's goshuin.

Should the paper books be separate?

One source advises keeping them apart and another says it is not a rule, so which way you go belongs to the owner. This article recommends neither.

Two sources advise keeping them apart.

• Shirobito writes that they should be stored apart from your goshuin, and introduces the castle-seal books made to hold them.
• The Goshuin Kentei column also concludes that it recommends keeping them apart, for three reasons: a goshuincho is handed across to be written in, and a castle seal mixed into it can leave the writer unsure; castle seals come pre-written, so a book or file you paste into handles them more easily; and things are easier to keep in order when you look back through them.

The case for it not being a rule comes a little further down the same column. There is no rule, it says, that they absolutely must be kept apart, and it mentions the view that taking care the castle-seal pages are not in sight when you hand your goshuincho over is enough on its own.

If you are undecided, sorting those reasons by kind makes the decision easier. The writer's peace of mind and the handling of loose sheets can only be settled on paper. The third one — being easier to keep in order when you look back — is the only one you can also build on the record side, as the next section shows.

What do you add to the record to keep it as one?

Add one field for the type, and fix its values at two words: goshuin and castle seal. Every other field can stay exactly as it is for goshuin. It is the columns a goshuin list starts from plus one.

The reason the type is a field rather than something you write in the note is that every single record has a value for it. Anything you write on some days and not others is easier to keep in one note field, while a value that every record carries earns a field, because a field is what you can filter on. How to tell what deserves a field from what belongs in the note is a separate article.

Set against each way of splitting the paper, the record looks like this.

Keeping the type when the book already tells you is worth the duplication, because the two are different facts: the book is where the paper lives, the type is what the thing is. Change how you split the paper later, or move castle seals out of a file and into a book, and the type values do not move with them.

The other fields read across like this.

• Name: put the castle's name in the shrine-or-temple field. If you are building your own table, there is no harm in renaming the column to something like "Shrine, temple or castle". Writing one castle sometimes as "X Castle" and sometimes as "X Castle Site" pulls the two apart when you sort, so settle on one spelling.
• Date: for a goshuin the day you received it, for a castle seal the day you got it at the castle, both in the same date field. Because the date lives in one field, the two types fall into a single run of days.
• Book and page: follow the paper. For a castle-seal book with pockets, count the order you slid them in as the page number, and paper and record stay one to one.

To decide the type value, look at whether the name written on the paper is a shrine's or a temple's or a castle's. For whatever is still unclear, note where you received it, and you can settle it later.

What date do you record for a castle seal that carries none?

Start from the capture date of the photograph you took the day you received it, confirm it against the photographs either side, and if you cannot settle it, keep it as an estimate with your reasoning beside it. How each castle handles the date is outside this article. Even with nothing on the paper, a date in the record is enough to sort by.

On the sheets themselves, Shirobito states that most castle seals are printed, and the Goshuin Kentei column says pre-written sheets are the norm. If the day you received it is not on the paper, the paper cannot give you the date. What can is your photographs, and the other records from the same day.

1. Look at the capture date of the photograph of the castle seal. If the clock on your device was right, the capture date is either the day you received it at the castle or some day after it.
2. Look at the photographs either side. A run of photographs from the same day — the gate, the stone walls, the keep, the way there — makes that day your first candidate. A photograph of the castle seal sitting alone on a later date suggests you shot the sheets in a batch once you were home.
3. Look at the goshuin from the same trip. If you also stopped at shrines or temples and those goshuin carry dates, they help you confirm a candidate day. A single trip can run across more than one day, so read them together with the capture dates. Keep one record sorted by date and the goshuin from the same trip are sitting right next to it.
4. If you cannot settle it, keep it as an estimate. Enter the date as far as you know it, and write the reasoning in the note: "estimated (capture date; photographs of the castle either side)".

Photographs you were sent in a messaging app, and screenshots, can show the day you saved them as though it were the capture date. How to spot a photograph whose capture date is off, and how to keep an estimate is covered in detail in the article on tracing goshuin dates.

In the app I make

Goshuin Ledger, the app I make, gives every record a Type field. The four it offers are Goshuin, Goshuinjo (castle seal), Tetsuin (railway seal) and Gosenin (ship seal), so what this article recommends — one field for the type — is how a record is already built.

• Type: choose Goshuinjo (castle seal) in the record's Type field. The default is Goshuin, so a castle seal is the only record you ever have to set it on. A search reaches the name of the shrine or temple, its reading, your note, the Japanese-era date and the type, so searching for goshuinjo brings the record up together with which book and which page it is in.
• Name: type the castle's name into the Shrine or temple field by hand. The only names suggested to you are ones you saved before.
• Date: the field is called Visit date. For a castle seal, enter the day you got it at the castle. Import photographs in bulk and the capture date is filled in as the starting value (a photograph with no capture date information uses the import date).
• Export: the type goes into both the PDF and the CSV, so opening the CSV in a spreadsheet lets you filter down to the castle-seal rows. What goes into the CSV and what goes into the PDF is set out in the article on export.

Recording in your first book needs no purchase and has no limit on how many entries it holds. Keeping your goshuincho and your castle-seal book as separate books makes the second one, and a second book and beyond needs the one-time Ledger Full. PDF / CSV export, and adding imported photos to a book all at once, are part of Ledger Full as well. The App Store shows the current price. What the purchase covers is set out on the home page.