"This may or may not help, but there is a very similar bonsai in Yoshio Takayanagi's book Masterpieces of Bonsai, on page 23. The photo shows the bonsai moving right to left, the opposite of your tree's current front, but it looks very similar. The book I have is the third printing: June 1989. The original copyright is 1986 by Shufunotomo Co., Ltd."
This is very interesting. It would not be the first time a photograph was flipped horizontally in a Japanese book or magazine. While this group appears so traditional to most it brakes a major rule: it consists of EIGHT trees. I assume that this would be a rare coincidence that the image from the seventies , the image from the eighties and the image in 2012 all show a group with EIGHT trees and the main trees have very similar motions and proportions and not be the same group. I have flipped the image (again?) and put it up for all to guess whether this is the same group.
So now what is the consensus?
