The micro-book titled: Shiki no Kusabana, flowers of season, lists the names of important Japanese flowers next to their illustrations (monochrome) including cherry and plum flowers, which Japan is famous for.
Toppan, one of Japan’s largest printers, has been printing micro-books since the 1960s. This book, which is similar in size to the eye of a needle, is on display at its Printing Museum in Tokyo.
It was printed using the same technology used to print banknotes and has a retail price of 29,400 yen.
The Guinness Book of Records, which has a database of more than 40,000 different records of which only about 4,000 are published in its annual, lists many ‘smallest books’, including the world’s smallest edition of the Quran printed in 1875.
It lists the smallest reproduction of a printed book as Teeny Ted from Turnip Town, a Canadian book 0.07 mm x 0.10 mm in size whose letters are carved into 30 micro-tablets on a polished piece of crystalline silicon.
Toppan’s book is a ‘printed book’ and, unlike the Canadian book, was not produced using nanotechnology or other techniques used in the manufacture of semi-conductors. It has also received a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records.
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