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DaveT

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Everything posted by DaveT

  1. i've really studied the photos of the do, the construction within the damage, sabi, kokuso urushi, odoshi weave and I think its 20th century, flood victim.
  2. DaveT

    books on yoroi

    For the non Japanese or French reader? My advice is to buy as many and you can. Museum Catalogues are okay, but not the best thing, so I will discount these books for now. Yet they hold many treasures. 1. Arms & Armour of the Samurai Ian Bottomley and Jock Hopson, plus anything with Ian's Name on it. 2. Watanabe Collection / The Do / Kabuto in production Trevor Absolon, love him or hate him he has produced and is producing some very weighty books packed full of information. I haven't seen anything to equal them yet for content. 3. Japanese Armour Society JAS Magazine - Ongoing Four magazines a year with a partial translation and year book containing translations from the Japanese experts and that french bloke Burowoy. (I'm banned from the JAS for being a hurtful psychopath so haven't seen a copy now for some time).
  3. DaveT

    Lacing

    1/10 is exactly what it is. He has broken ever rule in the book. When I went to Japan and visited the Katchushi Ogawa he verbally kicked my butt all over the living room for about an hour with regard to restoring katchu without researching the correct way first. I was talking with Mr Hallam the other day about how we craftsman that have devoted our lives to learning how to do things correctly can be seen as arrogance, he was referred to as a primadona for being critical of a crap carving. The good student will accept this and learn how to do it correctly, the ignorant will ignore, call you a hater. I have met Steff two times and and exchanged many WhatsApp messages, at the Arms Fairs he attends I, Mike Hickman Smith, Bas, Les the UK shokunin host a table for collectors and the enthusiastic where they can freely ask us questions or even place a commission. 16hrs in the same room and Steff has never asked for help, he can bind tuska and lace armours with no assistance from the experts, the professionals that do this day in, day out. This Know-it-all attitude delivers the result we have seen above, discard all the excuses and talk of cocktail sticks. What we have is a prime example of a poor job conducted by someone that knows better and then seeks validation. Ian Bottomley, Trevor Absolon, Bryant and myself have provided many online FREE guides to lacing armour. It takes a quick google to locate them. When you meet us in person at symposiums and token events we help. I travelled to the Samurai Art Expo at my own expense and run a table for all attendees to come and talk about katchu, urushi, odoshi etc. Many people on this group have contacted me in the past for tips and guidance, and to date I have helped all of them. As to amateur restoration I am not fond of this and have yet to see the message board open a do-it-yourself polish your own blade section. Please do not attack me for this, I seem to be the only professional katchushi on this forum now, I doubt you will get another.
  4. Kelly, JAUCE is a proxy service and will clear nihonto and items over 200,000 yen.8% comission.
  5. I know your pain, I ran the samurai armour forum with Justin for years. You are better off with a server to server back up and the hosting companies should provide that. Maybe sales and events should have a listing fee, something small. We tried to get banner ads, most dont want to pay for them. Same with dealer areas, I'd be surprised if any came forward. The reality is that your community is divided between gleamers and people that love the subject. That is clearly reflected by who's funding the forum and who's not.
  6. Personally, I don't think your own home cost apply as it's your personal internet, when I donated it was towards the forum, not Netflix. But the additional costs of maintaining the forum could be covered by the membership. I know that what I said before fell upon deft ears but I will make my point again. When you have the total expenditure run a yearly fundraiser with a target, the members can see what the target is and how much it and the status. The fund thread can be seen and regularly updated rather than get hidden as this one does. As for selling, there are many places to sell items from Instagram to Facebook so this forum is more inclined to be a social platform and that's why the ones that use it socially are probably the funders. You could provide some of the societies/show shows with some allocated space and ask for a yearly fee to represent, promote and host them. We also have some members with very deep pockets, I guess some are just stingy, pity. Just my 2 cents.
  7. Brian, please may I ask a simple question. What is the total cost for operating the forum on a yearly basis?
  8. Maybe it was made by a katchushi in the 1950's? The shikoro has also been off as the byo are misplaced and kabuto-no-o himo are in the wrong ana. I often am suspicious of things when they don't add up.
  9. A lot of dealers are not as knowledgable as we may think. They are not trained as katchushi and have very little idea of what can actually be altered to create a more desirable piece, so in some cases, they sell items on face value. Others commission such things and their deception is by design. The armour above was listed in a famous auction house, the description was based upon the fabricated provenance which has now become a reality. As I said above, every restoration that I conduct is now fully transparent and documented on my Social media and website, I reject commissions where the owner will not allow this. In my view restoring an armour is akin to having a sword polished, fitting a new koshirae etc, nothing to be ashamed about saving a historic piece. Also in Japan, the onus is on the buyer to know what they are buying, I purchased a kabuto from kinokuina some 20 years ago and it turned out to be patched with car filler. As collectors, we get rolled at times. I know of many high-end collections that have fakes purchased from Japan. I also know most of the dealers that like to deceive you as they have approached me to create things for them. I also know that because most of the katchushi will not indulge them they are using all sorts of modern materials themselves in-house which is a form of vandalism. Any gimp can use car filler, spray paint and lace an armour incorrectly. It's a dirty industry. Completely normal when cash is on the table.
  10. Absolon talking about Shady Ethics. Lol. I'm currently having a talk with Momiyama-san on Facebook. He sold this armour to Trevor and by if magic, it grew gold mons on the mune-ita and kote-tekko. The Katchu world has its bullshitters just like any other community I guess and where money is involved items get changed all the time to make them more expensive and desirable. Amazing how this armour gained an instant provenance. In saying that I've done this for clients in the past, added Mon, maki-e moustaches etc. One dealer had me paint a maki-e Hige on a menpo, I charged him £270.00 and then he sold it for thousands and emailed me to rub it in. All the work I do now is fully transparent with a photographic record on my website. I'm done making dishonest greedy dealers money. So the Kabuto is now completely married to the armour because the Mon are now featured throughout. This should be a lesson for others that a Gusoku can be created, just match the odoshi and add some mon.
  11. I ran the Samurai Armour Forum for a number of years and paid for the hosting. I know what this is like when the bills hit and you are low on cash believe me. I always felt that the forum should be hosted for free, but we had a number of members step forward and fund it which took the pressure off. I used to think about ways to raise the cash, I don't think donations from sales is the way forward as there are many alternative outlets now that are free. A yearly Fundraiser maybe would be good with a target and list of contributors, there is no shame in asking members to help reach the target. Maybe a yearly small "usage" fee for dealers, armour and sword societies that promote themselves here? They attract members that pay subscriptions after all.
  12. That's really nice of you as well Justin. You know we all have had a punch-up at one time or another. We threw him off the Samurai Armour Forum, he was removed from The Japanese Armour Society after only three weeks in, so this really reflects on the quality of the people within our community in that we will look out for each other when it's really needed. I've also reached out to Trevor Absolon, Eric was a big fan of Trevor and was somewhat of a driving force on the net to help promote his books, so I've asked him to help Eric's family.
  13. Luc, I hope you warned her about the Katchu Sharks that may try to eat Eric's collection cheaply. Eric asked me to help safeguard his collection and assist with a valuation, I agreed to help him but he fell sick before I could help. Please let his wife know that the offer still stands so that Eric's treasures are not undersold. If she is reading this page then please feel free to contact me, I do not want to buy anything, but I will help you for free.
  14. Eric called me up a few weeks ago and we overcame our feud. We talked for many hours, at the end of the air was clear, we joked and remembered the best of the old days. He said to me "I have cancer", I asked how bad? He joked the type that kills you. Eric and I crossed swords on many occasions, he was always concerned about the community and it was him that urged me to launch the samurai armour forum, he truly had the collector at heart. He hated the manipulation of others, the social climbers and those that would use groups or other vehicles to prey on others for personal gain, for that I will honour his memory and also relate that some of the people commented here he despised to the grave. He asked me to open up all the social media pages that I run so that everyone would be able to see inside. I did this for him, no secrets or restricted information to selected members. Something now that maybe all should take on board to remember him by? We are only here for a short time, maybe Eric's departure can become symbolic that we all need to pull up our socks and work together and become one family again in the katchu world. Good luck with your travel Eric to the other side, we will see you again one day in Katchu Heaven, or Katchu Hell depending on which bus Fudo is driving. What a pity we have lost him.
  15. Ian B, thank you for your energy, tolerance and the time you put into proving a point and helping Mark to understand what he has acquired without being misinformed. Haruta was a ridiculous assessment from those who should know better. ​不動智神妙録 Have a great day everyone.
  16. DaveT

    Somen

    There's one listed on Yahoo Auctions. b376950322 Nice wall hanger?
  17. Well as I said I have been sitting back and watching this one unfold. I'd like to say this and I know it will ruffle feathers. Thank god we have Ian Bottomley. Luc, please think about what you write, you, John and Uwe are all directors of the JAS and what you write can be perceived by the naive as authoritative, especially when you rally together and support each other thoughts. Ian B has been factual and evidenced his findings based on what is in front of him and of course referencing Dr Sasama, you guys have been speculative, subjective and distracting by diverting the focus to a hachi made my another smith, from another location in another style. Many believe that Dr Sasama's works are put down by the Japanese Armour Society due to his departure, is this now filtrating through to your branch? For me, this venture into the woods held no value or contribution to the thread or would help the owner to authenticate or understand what he has. The sword guys would not allow a Gassen Sadayoshi to be misidentified as a Shin Gunto fact, the Dunning-Kruger effect comes to mind, so maybe we can learn from them and accept that is okay to take on another opinion if validated. Uwe, my interest as a Katchushi. What we have here is an example of a solid 8 plate hachi that has undergone a customised make-over. It has been sent to a lacquerer to be transformed. We see this type of folly in nerigawa hachi that are moulded then made to resemble suji-bachi. The process would be for the urushi-shi to build the suji from hemp rope and kokuso, then cover it in urushi. In doing this the rear of the hachi could have been raised with filler to create the goshozan shape, without inspection from the inside we will not know, so for this example, we cannot make any assumptions to the Smith based on the outside appearance. The tameshi is of interest as we know that teppo paranoia was sweeping through the edo period and katchushi were hammering-in the test dents as a part of the construction to reflect its robust qualities, we also know that stronger ken were used only for the test shot and the rest of the hachi was standard iron. With kokuso filling the outer dents we cannot be sure if the tameshi is artificial or not. The front of the hachi shows a double Tsunomoto, but in between, there is another Ana, it's rather bulky and much larger than you would expect to see for a single tsunomoto, it has not been covered up during the conversion so that is a mystery of sorts. Next up the ukebare is fitted to the front section of the koshimaki, its stitched in place, most suji have the front of the ukebare glued in place due to the underneath of the mabezashi. Now if you look at the Miage-or you can see that the byo terminate there and are covered in shu-urushi. So this would indicate that the mabezashi is not original to the hachi and is an element of the conversion.
  18. I've been following this thread with interest from the standpoint of a Katchushi. Ian, you seem to be able to evidence your findings. Thank you for your summary. Tailman? What are you talking about? If this is Haruta then please provide evidence to support your claim, otherwise its just a subjective point of view.
  19. Newbie question, has this anything to do with Enomoto Sadayoshi?
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