The term meibutsu-gire came into use to refer to highly valued textiles for use in the tea ceremony following the inclusion of a meibutsu-gire section in the Illustrated Compendium of Renowned Tea Ceremony Implements of Past and Present (kokon meibutsu ruijū) compiled by Matsudaira Fumai (1751-1818) and published in the years 1787-1797. Some of the samples in the Collection of Old Kinran Textiles match the names of those mentioned in Matsudaira's Compendium: specifically, kōya-gire,  daikokuya-gire, and daitō.

Collection of Special Acquisitions 5497

This scrapbook contains a varied collection of around 40 sarasa (chintz) textile samples of all sizes. Sarasa textiles are made of cotton and decorated with patterns including flora, fauna, and people, which are dyed into the fabric using stencils or hand-drawn designs. They spread throughout the world following the establishment of East India Companies by Europeans in the 1600s.

On the inside cover of the Ad Hoc Collection of Sarasa Textiles is text written in ink saying this is a scrapbook of various sarasa fabrics collected freely and impulsively by a person known as "Suien" (Hachiya Mokitsu, 1795-1873). Suien was a vassal of the Tayasu Household, one of the three cadet branches of the Tokugawa clan, and a renowned essayist. If this scrapbook was indeed compiled by Suien, it is indeed a work of great interest.