Ian B3HR2UH

I like Hoshi's theory . One of my blades is by Kunihide and whilst it has bold sunagashi it is far more subtle and finer than the piece that Reinhardt has shown . His piece reminds me of the showa pieces that are produced by the likes of Amahide where the work is much coarser and even more artificial looking. So I will stick my neck out and say it is more recent than shinshinto .

Hi Dale , I think your illustration is from the Red Cross catalogue at which time the tsuba was owned by Mejor Everard Calthrop who was killed in action at Ypres on the 19th of December 1915

How soon we are forgotten ! As no one knows anything about Mr Petersen I will briefly set out what I found out about him. Russell Robinsons 1962 book on the manufacture of Armour and Helmets in the 16th century Japan shows an armour owned by Axel Petersen Copenhagen . I believe this is probably the Axel Petersen born in 1887 who was an electrical engineer best known for his pioneering work in developing " talking pictures " . As part of this process he directed movies in the early twenties . On the collecting front he was purchasing tsuba and other Japanese art at London auctions in the forties and fifties, primarily at the H C Clifford sale in 1947 and the E J L Gardiner sale in 1948 . Sothebys auctioned a few of his pieces at a sale in Dec 1969 but the bulk of them were sold at their auction on the 10th of March 1970 . Four pretty impressive tanto and about 120 tsuba of Petersens were auctioned . The tsuba were top quality and at least one is now Juyo tosogu. Bon Dale the chair of the Token Society , one of my boyhood collecting hero's , wrote the sale up in the Token Society's programme as attached . The Katsuhira tsuba that sold for 1150 pounds was purchased by Peter Hawkins who sold seven years later for over four thousand pounds , not a bad profit ! I wonder where it is now ? The Myoju tsuba that set the London record wasn't owned by Petersen . I wonder if this went on to bigger things . Mr Petersen died the year after his auction

Please don't go Rayhan, the board needs more people who are prepared to tell it how it is . Bon Dale was the leading light of the Token Society of GB in the early days, he tried to educate the masses and was pretty scathing when it came to bad swords . He would be rolling in his grave if he read this discussion . Ian Brooks

Grab it

Rayhans point is that we have to stop giving people false hope when it comes to their swords.This piece is not worth investigating it is a poor quality junker that is beyond restoration

Has anyone thought about the forging flaws in this blade , it is full of them. They seem to be kizu rather than rust pits. It is unsalvageable

And the blade by Masanori

Is this the one?

I recently purchased the 1970 Sotheby auction catalogue of the Axel Petersen collection . It was a great collection of tsuba. Does anyone know anything about Mr Petersen? I suspect he may have been the Danish writer , engineer and film director who died on the 8th of June the following year aged about 84.

These are the Norishige in Umetada Meikan .

Hello Tobi , I have the catalogue and if you let me know which lot number you are interested in I will send you a copy . Ian

This one has the owners details written on it Ogawa group Army Captain Amano Kojiro

Back in the 1970's when I was buying swords off returned soldiers I saw about four of these in one night . I had no interest in them and made no offers . I guess I could have purchased half of them for twenty dollars each . I feel pretty foolish in hindsight .

Hi Hamish , not a "Festing " sword I am afraid but one of my tsuba was sold at this auction .

Does anyone have the results sheet for Sothebys sale on the 23rd of June 1982 that they could scan and send to me ? Thanks Ian Brooks

I am somewhat skeptical that these are a real daisho and not two similarly themed pieces put together . The workmanship on one looks better than on the other .

Hi Thomas,I have the attached piece which I believe is a gardeners knife or Nata .The blade has a reverse curve in that the cutting edge is on the concave side . I suspect yours is a Japanese gardening implement as well. Ian brooks

Hi Hamish , it looks like a stylised dragon wrapped around a ken . Ian

A collector out here had a good looking daisho pair in " shakudo " nanako with mon on them . To me, on a cursory inspection , they looked good but he submitted them to shinsa and they failed being rejected as modern cast pieces . The coloring on the clouds of this piece looks odd to me . Ian Brooks

I have the attached Kai gunto and the ito on it is completely original so such pieces do exist . However such light binding is highly unusual and with the other red flags it should add up to a warning to avoid the sword . The kabuto gane on the originals generally are made of one metal to which the copper flower parts are soldered ( ? ) on . You can see this on the photo of my piece . The one you are being offered seems to be just the one metal which is I think a bit odd . I wait for others to howl me down on this and show me their pieces where just the one metal is used for the kabuto gane

I would be very suspicious of this piece . As Brian says the habaki is way off and a few other bits raise red flags for me . These coupled with the fact that the other piece the seller has is a Chinese fake leads me to say don't go near it unless you see photos of the nakago

With pictures being submitted by attorneys it looks like you are wanting to sell this and are picking our brains for information ?

This Soten , which is owned by Mishina Kenji , is pictured in the Kokusai Tosogu Kai 8th Exhibition and is described as one Soten's best . I thought it was fantstic and decided to post a copy . Makes you wonder where the others fit into the scheme of things when you see something like this one

The mei / signature is so recently cut that the blade is probably gendai / showa period but certainly no earlier than shin shinto