DirkO

To be honest - as far as I know he's a very modest and humble man. Your remark seems to hint at some earlier unresolved issue? If so, I propose you take it up with him. Seeing this film is relevant to our collecting area, I put it up here.

Another one that wasn't posted on NMB - last one for now, I promise! It goes more into depth of the Muramasa legend. Again, narrated in English - a bit dramatized, but this keeps it low threshold for the general public and there are a few nice bits of information for collectors as well. A Cursed Blade

This seems to have slipped under the radar, but NHK recently did a series on 12 absolute masterpieces. All short films of roughly 5 mins, but narrated in English or subtitled where needed so easily accessible. The Beauty of Japanese Swords: Famous Masterpieces

The new English book from Paul Martin, currently already be available in French and Italian, can be pre-ordered: Order here I, for one, am pretty excited about this new publication.

Last time I got outbid for #1 at ¥30,000 or there about... The earlier ones are quite difficult to get.

Tokubetsu Jūyō books 2-10 - these are dirt cheap - I already have all these, but really, someone should pounce on them!

Hi Bruce, Although I don't use Safari, I'll try to help nonetheless: Some people suggest the below: Others say to disable developer menu:

https://www.avast.co...cache-cookies-iphone Follow these steps. Probably your session cookie is corrupt, causing you to log out. And it's synched between your devices. Also read through it first, otherwise you'll remove it for all your sites, which isn't necessary.

Clear your cache and cookie for this site, should fix it.

https://www.nihontoc...hinshi_Masahide.html Suishinsi Masahide actually did some testing on this, albeit more towards hamon.

@Dan tsuba great find! it put me on the way of something else - seeing yours have 6 lines, but apparently it relates to an older system with 4 lines, which most tsuba have with this design:

I'll argue with Torigoye then (not really seeing his strong point was iron tsuba) These are the chapter symbols for the Tale of Genji.

https://buyee.jp/ite.../auction/p1115976815 He has 4 volumes for sale, alas only 1 you're looking for.

It's a nice tsuba, but that name (石黒改時) doesn't appear in the Toso Kinko. Now that can happen, seeing it will be a later lesser master, however, there's a comprehensive school genealogy in the book "The Ishiguro school of Japanese sword fittings artists" and there's no Masatoki there either? This makes me think either the 'Ishiguro' part of the mei got added later, or it was a legitimate maker called Masatoki - 改時 who made a piece in the style of Ishiguro and signed it as such. Also the Kanji for Masa 改 is not the one used for the Masa's in Ishiguro, there it's 政. This is strange, seeing that 1 kanji is usually handed down to students to show their lineage. eg. for Ishiguro 政常 - Masatsune -> 政美 - Masayoshi -> 是美 - Koreyoshi

The origins of the Kiami School are rather obscure and authorities, when they mention it at all, seem to differ over the details. The consensus, however, appears to be that their origins lie in the Province of Aki in the south of Honshu and Wakayama even records a tsuba signed Hiroshima ju Kiami, Hiroshima being the capital of Aki Province. Haynes (catalogue no.7, lot 67) states that the school, which he chooses to call Goami, originated with a certain swordsmith called Kai Masanaga who worked in the Hiroshima area and one day "added tsuba making to his art as a sword smith'". Joly, however, in the Naunton catalogue states "The first Kiami, Kanenobu, worked in Aki and is said to have been the second Hoan, but it is probable that Kanenobu was the traditional name (torina) of the family as there are great differences in age, style and technique in the pieces signed Kanenobu." This latter point is particularly valid since, as Joly also mentions, there appear to be three quite distinct groups of work which have come down to us today bearing the name Kiami. The first group is signified by the use of a Tembo-style hot-punched design of mon, calligraphic characters and even flowers. The rather thick iron from which this type of tsuba was made has a slightly coarse grain to it and often nunome work in gold and silver has been used to embellish it. Whilst the nunome work is reminiscent of Shoami decoration, Haynes comments that the kokuin or stamped decoration is usually far superior to that produced by the Tembo. There are some relatively plain, sukashi decorated tsuba that have been given to the Kiami School in the past and Joly illustrates one in Naunton, as no.1127. It is this group that Torigoe refers to in Tsuba Geijutsuko as being "in the Choshu manner". The last group, characterised by openwork with nunome zogan decoration, is much more in the tradition of some of the Shoami workers, particularly the Awa Shoami whose elaborate use of nunome reaches a peak in the Kenjo or presentation pieces, reputedly made as gifts to be presented to the Shogun by the provincial Daimyos on their semi-annual arrival in the capital. The Kiami pieces are even more decorative as their makers would make excellent use of ke-bori and relief technique which would be used to both emphasise and to counter-balance the abundant nunome. Extract from "Tosogu - Treasure of the Samurai"