John A Stuart

Most inane excuse of the month. BTW, that kogai I mentioned earlier; I was notified I had not won it even though my reserve was the one posted. as hammer price WTF John

Auctions are frustrating. I checked an auction in Austria today and a waki-Goto kogai I bid on met my reserve of 1100 Euro No notice yet, did someone preceed me. Frustrating, for sure. John

Looks like Japanese Honeysuckle. John

When you look at the characteristics of the plate , does it not give a distinct impression of commonality of steel and working of the blank? It certainly leads to Nobuie, Kaniye amd YKB being made by a group of imitators meeting a commercial demand. John

It is a great exemplar in very good condition. Well worth the price. John

Wonderful, I posit 'order and chaos' as what I envision. John

The standard Romaji would be Kanemoto. As it is rendered syllabically Kanamoto in this case is just what happens with transliteration of foreign languages. John

Yes, it does, but, alone it doesn't normally exist, being representative to 水

Does anyone have an explanation for the phantom tobiaki like anomaly? John

Good for you. They will make people jump through so many hoops that they give up. Standard legal process. Give Mazie a call too, big gun or is that shogun, haaaaa. John

The site mentions Edo/Meiji period, however I get a very contemporary vibe. It is attractive. John

Agree, with the exception of the Kobuse method being a poorer construction, cost cutting or time saving (mass production). An outer sheath of premium steel especially the Ha wrapped around a softer core seems just so logical for purpose of robustness and being slightly more work intensive belies it making a process suited to the mass production during the Warring Period as an excuse over a mono-steel method. It may reduce the time needed to homogenize a sufficient quantity of steel pure enough for an entire sword. Time experiments for efficiency need to be done to be absolutely sure though.

Menuki are vestigial remnants of tsuka to ken fastenings and became ultimately ornamental. Can you imagine anyone quipping, 'I can't use that, the menuki are all wrong',? As to left handed use; any good swordsman would train their left hand to be as competent as possible in case of injury or necessity. There were a few nito schools and in the west it was very common, the main gauche, as in la verdadera destreza. John

I wonder how many casts were made in the run of this hawk, could it be later than Meiji period? A later edition? Rodin had foundries casting well after his death and the premium was always for pieces cast during his life. I would like to have this guy perched somewhere in the house. John

I'd swear this is the tachi sold by Bonham's, July 2015 for $2434 US. It was listed as having an 'untempered' blade and with slight damage to the enamels and tsuba. Used as regalia it was decorative by nature and very likely the equivalent of parade swords of the modern military in that they were hardly weapons. John