Bridgestone Trademarks

In a couple of previous posts,　“Bridgestone Bicyle 　(①Selecting a Project)” and, more relevantly,“Bridgestone Guarantee Medals”, the the following was mentioned:

“The origins of the name Bridgestone comes from the founder's last name Ishibashi written with the two characters （石=stone 橋=bridge）.  The founder reversed the two to form Bridgestone.　The original trademark consisted of BS (Bridge + Stone) encased in a keystone.

While the keystone trademark is original to the earliest BS bicycles, keep in mind that the Bridgestone Tire Co., Ltd was established long before in 1931 and it wasn't until 1949 that Bridgestone spun-off its bicycle division to form Bridgestone Bicycle Co., Ltd.

In researching the Bridgestone trademark I stumbled upon an interesting technical publication from 1952 which happened to list previous registered Bridgestone trademarks.

This is the earliest Bridgestone trademark that I could find.  Registered in 1933.
Literally a "stone bridge".

(Closeup)

The following two trademarks written in the Japanese katakana syllabary, were recorded later in the same year, 1933.

The first BURITON and the latter BURISUTON.

The two trademarks below appear to have been registered in 1934.

Here we see a Bridgestone trademark from 1935.

This trademark, from 1938 appears quite similar to the previous 1934 trademark, though the upper portion of the keystone appears to be slightly　shorter with sharper angles.

Later in the same year, 1938, this trademark with slightly different fonts from the above was registered.  Note the shorter neck.

.

And, finally, this mirrored keystone BS trademark is from 1941

Since the use of English was strictly prohibited during WWII, Bridgestone officially changed its name to NIHON TAIYA in 1942 and did not revert back to Bridgestone until 1951.

Next up we shall take a closer look at the Bridgestone bicycle mentioned in 　“Bridgestone Bicyle 　(①Selecting a Project)”