Japanese import cast iron squirrel nutcracker

This cast iron nutcracker is about 6" long x 2.25" high x 1.5" high, has a "Price Imports Japan" label on the back and weighs about 10 ounces. It appears to be unused but is probably several decades old, perhaps 1950s to 1970s. No idea as to which foundry made this piece.

These are fairly common but typically well used and never labeled. These are also commonly found very crudely cast in brass or other metals and I suspect that copies were commonly made in high school metal shop classes. The Japanese made versions are very well cast with nice mold details. I ran across this one with the original label and picked it up in order to document it. In the second image, I added an inset of a better example of the label.

I could find virtually nothing about Price Imports, except that they imported a lot of pretty well made, high quality porcelain and ceramic bric a brac, music boxes, bar ware, vases, some cast iron objects, etc. from Japan. Later, as many of these import companies did, they started importing items from Taiwan, as well but seem to have soon after gone out of business. My best guess is that Price Imports was active from around the 1950s into the 1970s, but that is just a guess based on my research into similar American import companies of this period.

Calling this Mystery Unsolved since it is not known which foundry made, what region of Japan it was made in and lack of data about Price Imports. So many questions!