Jersey shinsa show

[Bungo]

for those that attended the Jersey shinsa show, how about a quickie report ?

Lot's of pink slips ? many got " bungo-ed " ? " Kaga-ed " ?

 

Any swords, fittings turn out " great " ? Any Yagyu tsuba turned up ? Kanayama ?

 

Milt O

[revkirk]

Hi Milt

The show was only moderately attended- some dealers- a few with many things- some with just a few. I myself did not witness a great deal of commerce.

The Shinsa was tough (at least on me) I went 4 for 10 and one of the papers (on a mumei katana) gave an attribution that was quite dissapointing.

I saw one yagyu tsuba on Cyrus' (Rymuado) table- it is on thier site as well.

BTW- a while back (2 months or so) I got a set of boar menuki signed by a Kyo goto smith- you were very helpful in helping me translate it- thanks!

Unfortunately they bounced- Ce la vie.

Local was nice- hotel was quite nice. Weather- ot surprisingly was less than accomdating.

Best to all

Kirk

[BSA]

I was only there Saturday and did not submit anything this time around. The buzz from others at the show was that things were tough, lots of pink papers going out.

[Bungo]

it appears they are extremely " conservative " in passing items with " big name ".................

 

Milt O

[ironchef.]

it appears they are extremely " conservative " in passing items with " big name ".................

 

Milt O

 

My first time working a Shinsa and boy am I tired. You guys are right though, lots of pinks going around. Yoshikawa was very concerned that there were so many gimei among both blades and kodogu. I have to admit I sweated a little when they were going over a little wak I submitted. Luckily it passed. The ironic thing is they needed an extra set of Fujishiro's to use and I happily brought mine. It would have been funny if they bounced my blade referencing my own books, haha.

 

Milt, drop me an email when you get the chance, wanted to share some info with you off the forum. Oh, one more thing. My little wak is signed Soshu Ise no Daijo Minamoto Tsunahiro. This is godai Tsunahiro. The signature was spot on to the one in Fujishiro's. Not sure if anyone would consider that a big name, but it made it pass the Shinsa team. I have a scan of the work sheet if anyone would like to see.

 

Ricky Wong

chef_iron@hotmail.com

[Mark Green]

They were being " conservitive" with all names Milt. If they were not sure, it seemed they pinked it.

I heard they ran out of pink paper. When I picked up my swords, there were only about 6 out of obout 50 allong the wall that had papered.

We only got one for nine. And a few of the write ups just seemed way off as it could be. We did have 3-4 that we knew were likely gemi, and just wanted to be sure. But a few others came back with questionable opionions. I went to the Met. so I didn't get a chance to question them about those. Not worried about it anyway, as these were on the most part keepers.

The Show was kinda sad. Not much there. A lot of overpriced starter blades. The Naginata fighting was good. And a few good displays. 5-6 realy nice swords on display. Moses's stuff looked good as well.

Mark G

[Brian]

Thanks all for the update on the show. Good for those of us who can't be there to hear how they work and what goes on. Surprised that it wasn't better attended. I know hundreds of us outside the USA would love to be able to attend, so what is the reason for some of the indifference over there? The shinsa prices seemed very fair, and the location can't have been too bad?

 

Did anyone take any pics to post, so that we can see some of our esteemed members "in action" and see some of the displays?

 

Regards,

Brian

[DavidF]

Hmm....

 

News about the "guilty as gimei until proved innocent" pink sheets is not very encouraging. I had a wakizashi in the Shinsa. But I have not yet heard from Moses Becerra, who was supposed to be presenting my blade.

 

Welll, I guess I will hear from him soon enough.

 

 

DaveF.

[Mark Green]

Well Dave,

Moses, spent a lot of time with the Shinsa teem. At least your sword had someone to lobby for it. Best wishes, Mark G

[ironchef.]

Hey Mark,

 

I wished I intro'd myself so I could have met more of the forum members. Unfortunately, if I wasn't busy taking pics, I was helping with paper work or running errands for the Shinsa team. You are partially right in that we ran out of paper, but it was all colors that we ended up running low on. Friday and Saturday were our two busiest days and even though we had supplies, things just ran low from the volume of items that came through. This was definitely an eye opener for me being the first time I've participated in a Shinsa from the working side of it.

 

I did have the great honor of sharing a smoke and 1 on 1 conversation with Yoshikawa sensei for about an hour. Very humble person with a great love of swords. That was the highlight of the Shinsa for me.

 

Ricky

[ironchef.]

Milt,

 

The email I sent you bounced. Might be your AOL spam filters.

 

Ricky

[Bungo]

Milt,

 

The email I sent you bounced. Might be your AOL spam filters.

 

Ricky

 

try muramasaiii@aol.com, if the Nigerians manage to keep informing me I have 35 million UNITED STATES DOLLARS coming, I see no reason why yours bounced ...hahahhaaa, I will look into the spam box, may be AOL doesn't like anything with hotmail.com

 

Milt O

[ironchef.]

Saw a couple of Bungo blades. Didn't notice any Kaga ones. Several Kiyomitsu attributions. A few Tsunahiro's along with mine. 2 very nice Motoshige blades (if I remember, 80 points each!). Some nice Hizen blades.

[Mark Green]

Hey Ricky,

It sounds like you had a great time at the shinsa. What great fun to see how it all works, and being able to hang with the people doing the work.

I didn't get out to meet people as much as I would have liked to.

Sat. eve we went into the city to go to the Met., and eat $100 steaks.

I was a bit blown away by a couple of the pink slip 'reasons'.

It was as though they hadn't even looked at one blade.

At least, one of our pinks turned out to be 1500's Bungo'ed. Just the wrong signiture. Or at least a signiture that nobody could make out.

I was thinking it was Yamato. Bungo is good for me.

I guess I should have brought all my bungo swords, that should all paper very easy. All signed by guys nobody would likely copy.

But from others I talked to, it seemed like if they didn't have a copy on file to go by, it didn't get paper. I could be all wrong about that. You having been there, may be able to shed some light on that.

Lessons learned. Mark G

[Bungo]

I have a koz signed by the 15th Goto master...........

 

same identical example illustrated in Kozuka100, Claude Thuault Collection book , page 198, koz # 87 ( yes, I compare the mei/kao strokes very very closely )

 

 

I thought it's going to be a slam dunk..................pinked !!

 

 

May be it's best to submit only mumei stuffs at oversea shinsa.

[ironchef.]

There seemed to be a large number of gendai blades among a lot of the pink sheets that I saw. I was photographing kodogu most of the time, so I didn't really get a chance to take in all of what the blade judges were doing. When I did make my observations, some blades I noticed they reached for a pink sheet right away. Other blades (like mine) they seemed to take a longer period of time with and conversed amongst each other. Guess its a hit or miss much like the Shinsa itself when it comes to how they approach evaluating a sword.

 

Mark, drop me a note next time your in town (NYC). Would enjoy chatting with you about blades and we can have some damn good Chinese food that won't even remotely cost you $100 like those steaks, haha.

[QuangD]

Ironchief,

 

I did see you there while I received my results. I just did not have the time to talk to anyone that much since my little child and wife were with me. The weather was horrible and a little chill and the child is getting tired for several hours walking around.

 

I submitted 8 and 5 failed. One pinked received a recommendation for removing the gimei since it has attributted to a Jo saku smith instead of Sai-jo saku. The rest of the other were clueless. One pinked of gimei from a gendaito smith to "modern smith" maker with unknown province. Based on my thought is if the signature is matched in Fujishiro books then you have a pretty good chance to papered. Otherwise, it will be pinked.

 

Actually, based on my observation two years ago in Chicago Shinsa. This one has a lot of pink papers. I don't mind to trade my pink papers for a while paper....LOL....

[ironchef.]

Quang,

 

Yes I do recall seeing you as well. The weather Friday night into Saturday evening was just disgusting. Wish I had to the chance to intro myself. Perhaps I will catch you at the next sword show.

 

Ricky

[QuangD]

Ricky,

 

Funny, I over heard your phone conversation in Cantonese. I almost got sick on Friday and Saturday as well. So I told family that if Sunday is nice we will head out to China town in N.Y. It is unbelieveable that Sunday is very nice weather. I might be able to see you again in Chicago Shinsa next year.

[David Flynn]

Hi, went to show and shinsa from Australia. Submitted a good Gendai signed Kanestune which passed with a relatively high point score. A mate from Australia also came with me and submitted four swords and a koshirae. Two swords and the Koshirae passed ( he bought the koshirae at the show ). Although the show was very small I thought there were more bargains there than in SF which we also attended. We were collecting our swords When they had just run out of Pink slips and had to use white. Overall a pleasing experience for both of us.

Dave :D

[ironchef.]

Hey Dave,

 

It was a pleasure meeting you and your buddy all the way from Oz! Sorry we didn't get to chat long. I know you both were looking for John Prough to square things away. Glad you both had a good time.

[David Flynn]

Thanks Ricky, it was a pleasure meeting you as well. We saw how busy you were. One more comment, I saw a bloke with three swords for sale that had been pinked. They had showa stamps on them and I was suprised that they were allowed to be submitted.

Dave

[QuangD]

Hi David,

 

It is my pleasure meeting you and your mate (Adrian)! You can submit anything swords you like but if you can receive a paper is another story. At least it is confirmed to me that Showa stamp swords will failed Shinsa and if the same blade submit again with the stamp remove to receive a paper is a very interesting topic.

 

Ricky,

 

What is your blackground for the photograph? What is the light setting you are using for the Koshirae?

[pcfarrar]

I submitted 8 and 5 failed. One pinked received a recommendation for removing the gimei since it has attributted to a Jo saku smith instead of Sai-jo saku.

 

Hi Quang that sounds interesting, what was the mei and who did they think it really was?

 

Peter

[ironchef.]

Hi David,

 

It is my pleasure meeting you and your mate (Adrian)! You can submit anything swords you like but if you can receive a paper is another story. At least it is confirmed to me that Showa stamp swords will failed Shinsa and if the same blade submit again with the stamp remove to receive a paper is a very interesting topic.

 

Ricky,

 

What is your blackground for the photograph? What is the light setting you are using for the Koshirae?

 

D,

 

I think the arsenal stamped blades submitted were an oversight. The intake staff was swamped with reservations and they wanted to be accomodating to walk-in's and if I recall, those showa blades were walk-in submission. Regardless, if intake had spotted it immediately, they would have told the collector not to waste his time nor money in submitting them. I think if someone had made reservations and brought a stamped blade in for submission, arrangements could have possibly been made for a refund of the reservation fee. Again, I'm not sure of all the details, just the info after the fact.

 

Q,

 

The background for kodogu and koshirae are grey to blue grey in color. When the camera is set on auto mode, the fittings judges believed that an 18% grey background would suit kodogu and koshirae photography best. For separate kodogu pieces, we have 4 incandescent spot lights on a rig with an armature for raising/lowering the heigt of the camera.

 

Additionally, we placed the kodogu on a piece of raise plate glass. We find this has advantages and disadvantages. It minimizes the shadows and optimizes the clarity of the piece. However, at certain angles, you can get glare off the glass from the light and reflections as well. The first day we played around with the lighting for a couple of hours before we thought everything looked acceptable.

[QuangD]

I submitted 8 and 5 failed. One pinked received a recommendation for removing the gimei since it has attributted to a Jo saku smith instead of Sai-jo saku.

 

Hi Quang that sounds interesting, what was the mei and who did they think it really was?

 

Peter

 

Hi Peter,

 

The gimei is "Echizen no Kami Minamoto Sukehiro". The pinked paper recommended: historically value and worthy preservation. The estimated work of "Zenjo Yoshikado". Province: "Musashi" and period of working: "cir enpo (1673)".

 

Well, I did not read the pinked paper carefully at the time to ask more question since my 15 months child is tired on that day. I just read it again few days ago and check on the Hawley book. I was better than I thought it was.

[QuangD]

Q,

 

The background for kodogu and koshirae are grey to blue grey in color. When the camera is set on auto mode, the fittings judges believed that an 18% grey background would suit kodogu and koshirae photography best. For separate kodogu pieces, we have 4 incandescent spot lights on a rig with an armature for raising/lowering the heigt of the camera.

 

Additionally, we placed the kodogu on a piece of raise plate glass. We find this has advantages and disadvantages. It minimizes the shadows and optimizes the clarity of the piece. However, at certain angles, you can get glare off the glass from the light and reflections as well. The first day we played around with the lighting for a couple of hours before we thought everything looked acceptable.

 

I do see the gray and blue gray as the background. The reason I asked is that I have troubled taking good pictures for sword. The reflection and the shadow. Plus I use only 150 watts sunlight bulb. I believe I need the 1500 watts light and a large softbox to take better pictures.

[ironchef.]

I personally find it very difficult to take pics of blades and get it to a quality like you see on some online dealer sites or auction catalogues like Christies and Sotheby's.

 

I do agree that a light box would probably be necessary for the at home collector who want to take their own pics. I think the difficulties play into why the NTHK does oshigata's for their Shinsa. It's quick and less equipment to lug around.

[pcfarrar]

 

The estimated work of "Zenjo Yoshikado". Province: "Musashi" and period of working: "cir enpo (1673)".

 

 

Nice result! Worth getting the gimei removed.

 

 

BOKUDEN BANDÔTARÔ [ENPÔ 1673 HITACHI] SHINTÔ JÔSAKU

He is of the Omura Kaboku Mon, is called Kawamura Chôbei, and in the beginning he signed as MUSASHI NO KAMI YOSHIKADO. In Kanbun Jûnen 1672, he, along with his older brother Echizen no Kami Yoshikado, became swordsmiths exclusively to Mito Yoshimatsu. From around Enpô Yonen (1676) he changed his name to BANDOTARÔ BAKUSHÔ NYÛDÔ BOKUDEN. He passed away on Jôkyô Gonen (Genroku Gannen) Shichigatsu Yôka. Many of the blades he made have a majestic form, hamon is ô-midare, notare midare, nie kuzure. (Ryôwazamono)

[QuangD]

 

The estimated work of "Zenjo Yoshikado". Province: "Musashi" and period of working: "cir enpo (1673)".

 

 

Nice result! Worth getting the gimei removed.

 

 

BOKUDEN BANDÔTARÔ [ENPÔ 1673 HITACHI] SHINTÔ JÔSAKU

He is of the Omura Kaboku Mon, is called Kawamura Chôbei, and in the beginning he signed as MUSASHI NO KAMI YOSHIKADO. In Kanbun Jûnen 1672, he, along with his older brother Echizen no Kami Yoshikado, became swordsmiths exclusively to Mito Yoshimatsu. From around Enpô Yonen (1676) he changed his name to BANDOTARÔ BAKUSHÔ NYÛDÔ BOKUDEN. He passed away on Jôkyô Gonen (Genroku Gannen) Shichigatsu Yôka. Many of the blades he made have a majestic form, hamon is ô-midare, notare midare, nie kuzure. (Ryôwazamono)

 

Peter,

 

Thanks for the info. I already knew it will be a gimei and I was not expected much from it beside the usual attributed to lower end smith. So I was satisfied knowing this blade is not the Sai-Jo smith name at the shinsa without thinking anymore about it. I came home and started reading the pinked paper then I use hawley to find more about it before I dig into Fujishiro. Normally, Hawley contained almost all the smiths and provided not much beyond that.