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Solid Gold Menuki


Heringsdorf

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Gold menuki:  Muromachi to Modern

 

All level of blades, though of course expect some correlation between quality of the blade and the quality of the gold menuki.

 

In my very small collection I have 3 sets, but seem not to have taken very good photos of them.

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That's about right, Max :-)  The source of gold for metalworkers, as in most pre-industrial cultures, was generally the gold coinage. Thus the gold alloys often reflect that. The addition of silver doesn't make the alloy much harder (unlike copper) but does make the colour less orange. To restore the appearance of pure gold the surface was essentially etched to leach out the silver. This is called depletion gilding.

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Pete, 

What was really dumb was for me to have sold them in the first place !  I know where they reside, but can't get the owner to sell them back to me :-(

 

All nice sets shown, I think my favorite is Ian's camellia's or Pete's zodiac theme. 

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I have been looking for this photo all moprning and finally found it.  Set of falling sakura blossoms or possibly ume.  Forget who sold these but once again, I was too late.  I loved this set, so simple, yet so elegant.  Wish there were mine.

 

 

post-10-0-27923500-1443301149_thumb.jpg

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Maximillian:

 

I don't think anyone here is going to be particularly comfortable or forthcoming with trying to attribute a generation.

The NBTHK didn't.

 

Probably in the expanded Wakayama encyclopedia or in a few other texts you might be able to guess a generation.

I like those menuki very much and can say the family that sold them to you is a very nice one. I enjoyed talking with them at the last DTI, and intended to buy a tsuba from them until one of our NMB members took me to another place which had something I'd exactly been seeking and not yet found at the DTI.

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