American goldfish

There are no native American goldfish. Those seen or caught in American lakes, ponds, and streams were undoubtedly escaped or released pets. However, the United States leads the world in mass production, and the output of three or four fair-sized American fisheries easily exceeds the national production of Japan. The fixed species and varieties of goldfish now in America are as outstanding in quality as in quantity, and no fish surpasses them physically or artistically. Several fisheries, including our own, still order stock from Japan now and then, but we do this only to hold our quality by adding new blood.

Being concerned with the business all my life, it has been pleasant for me to see goldfish develop from a comparatively expensive oddity to a simple joy that everyone can afford. There is hardly a town today in which a youngster cannot walk into a dime store and, for a little small change, walk out with a couple of goldfish in a glass bowl or in one of the new plastic goldfish sacks.

In Japan goldfish are as popular as in America. Old men, with two buckets of goldfish hanging from a pole balanced across their shoulders, are familiar sights on the streets. The goldfish sell for the equivalent of a penny or two, depending on the size and kind, and, as in America, children are the best customers. And though speaking a different language, they make the same noises and smile the same smile as American children when they run home with a couple of new goldfish.

There are two basic types of goldfish-scaled and “scaleless.” The scaled fishes, the common goldfish, Comets, Fantails, and others, as we have said, are silvery olive-gray for three to six months. Then irregular spots of black, white, and gold appear, and in a few more weeks the black and white disappears, and the fish are covered with opaque, red-gold scales, bright and metallic. They will, that is, if they are going to color up at all. A small percentage of goldfish never do, and we sell hundreds of thousands of these uncolored ones every year as bait fish.

The so-called scaleless fish actually have transparent scales which look like a delicate skin. This makes beautiful glowing, but not shining, colors possible among forms like the Shubunkins and Calicos. Their colors, including blues and lavenders, appear in many combinations. Like human fingerprints, no two fish are alike. Scaleless fish are white at first, but begin to color up about the same time as the scaled varieties do, and the first patches of color which form stay as long as the fish live.

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