ROKUJURO

Thank you, Chris! That is the difference between practice and theory.....

Gentlemen, I am not sure this is the right department to write in, but I found no better. Very recently, I bought a book from Grey Doffin. Although well packed, the parcel and book arrived in damaged condition. I informed Grey and added some photos of the damage. He immediately refunded me the complete sum, postage included, without even awaiting a confirmation of the assurance of the transport firm USPS. As a plus, I could keep the book, which is still readable. I think this is an extremely fair and generous service - you cannot expect to be treated in a nicer way! I feel this is worth to be mentioned here! Thumbs up-smilie and !

Gentlemen, reading through the many opinions on this subject, I would like to add my view as well. As far as I know, removing a MEI the Japanese way does not necessarily mean to remove material. In the first step, it is not done with a file, but very carefully with a blunt chisel, hammering down the 'cushions' on the edges of every single chisel cut. This works of course best with rather fresh signatures and might be more difficult with older blades. If the MEI strokes were not too deep and wide, a signature could be removed almost without visible traces by this method. Some patination would enhance the result. That is what I have been told. On the photos of the blade in question it is very difficult to see. I think you have to play around with light from the side to make any small irregularity visible. If a MEI removal is suspected to have taken place, I would also use a microscope to examine the surface and not only search for a concavity.

USkragnut, to address you politely, please sign your posts at least with a first name. You found a nice blade as far as one can see. The signature is perhaps MINAMOTO YOSHISUKE, but I have no information about the smith, sorry.

David, nice TSUBA which seems to have some age! I can see the irregularities in the surface, and I think they were probably caused by etching or corrosion (which is basically the same). Where do you see hammer marks and what type of hammer could have caused them?

I think it is a new Chinese metal decoration disc, perhaps not cast but from a press, and not a repro as there are probably no Japanese originals looking similar.

Jesper, these MENUKI very probably depict rats. Others will add their opinion on school or maker.

Curran, concerning the gold TSUBA: the seller carefully avoided a camera look into the NAKAGO ANA, so I presume it may be a SAN MAI TSUBA. Not a beautiful one, unfortunately. Thanks for the information!

Gentlemen, reading all these comments on fakes, I want to add my view on it. About thirty-five years ago, there was an auction of Japanese art at Lempertz in Köln, Germany. One of the blades on display was a gorgeous KATANA with HITATSURA HAMON and a very long O-GISSAKI. It looked very nice, but an advanced collector I met there told me it was GIMEI and not KIYOMARO as the signature implied. Nevertheless it looked very desirable to my untrained eyes. Later I learned that this sword was bought by a professional dealer from Japan. I could not understand this, because I thought he should have known it was GIMEI. The collector explained to me that the dealer knew exactly what he was buying (at a price of something around DM 8.000.--; quite a lot then), and he explained about the mentality of private Japanese buyers. He said this sword would very probably be sold at a much higher price to a private collector without mentioning the GIMEI - and without being asked about it either! If the sword was about the quarter of the price of a genuine KIYOMARO (or even less), the new owner would know what it was, be happy with it, keep it in his TANSU, perhaps even not telling his closest friends about the purchase, and never show it to someone to avoid being called a boaster. The German collector said, the price difference made the fake obvious, so nobody felt a necessity to talk about it. It would not have been polite to mention it. Later I learned also that O-MINOGAME, the 1.000-year-turtle, is not exactly 1.000 years old - it is just old. This and some others stories taught me that terms like 'genuity', age, 'truth' and 'original' can have different meanings in different cultures. To sum this up I suspect the Chinese fakers do not at all feel bad about their business. They might even not feel guilty when they are caught selling pirated products. To an extent this could be a question of Asian mentality.

Congratulations!

Mariusz, if it has no NAKAGO-ANA, you cannot call this a TSUBA! Is it signed, at least?

Fred, it is perhaps rare but I don't think it is interesting from the view of NIHONTO. It seems to have been Laser-cut, it is not well made and the maker does not seem to have seen a real TSUBA from close. I don't think that 'this is really beautiful', and I never heard about any 'test of time' in relation to TSUBA. Any iron having been used in a TSUBA is about 4,5 billion years old, and that is sufficient as far as I am concerned. I'm not impressed.

Peter, it seems, the x-axis is the number. I don't see an average length of blades, but in the range of the measured blades there is a significant number with a typical WAKIZASHI length and a typical DAITO length between 65 and 73 cm. Nothing extraordinary. I think the objective was not to find the average length but to explain why a certain length was predominant. Just my personal interpretation.

Thank you, Gabriel! There is a point I am curious about: are the data based upon blades in general or were they chosen with regard to SURIAGE or UBU NAKAGO?

Jean, I read that also with a smile, but on the other hand, he is an American TANUKI, so you never know....

Gabriel, the blade length is certainly related to the physical dimensions of the people who used them. A KATANA, worn in the traditional way in the OBI, has a useful maximal length when drawn, if the SAMURAI had an average height of, let's say, 165 cm, and a respective arm length. Of course, there are always exceptions, but we talk about statisics. The other side is the physical dynamics. The shorter a blade, the faster it can be moved. A longer blader is slower, but has wider reach. A TACHI, wielded from horseback, will have other requirements than a sword of an ASHIGARU. Fighting techniques and the develoment of armour will certainly play another role. So there will always be a consensus from practice in blade length if all factors are to be considered, and this comes obviously down to an average of around 65 cm.

Vern, this I cannot tell from the photo, but in any case it would not affect the value of the TSUBA. The age is not related to the value - a newly handmade, high-class TSUBA is very desirable und will increase it's value. A mass produced copy remains always a copy (not speaking about UTSUSHI). Concerning your feeling of not being sufficiently knowledgeable: This will probably not change a lot even after 50 books! Welcome to the club!

Vern, what can be judged from a photo, the TSUBA is likely a recently made copy, a decoration piece.

Brian, have I been upgraded?

Stefan, if it were me, I would contact Paul Martin. Wish you a successful and enjoyable voyage!

Darcy, I would like to add some information to your overview: Citric acid is a weak fruit acid which nevertheless attacks steel. It cannot be 'extremely concentrated', because it is a crystalline powder, when you buy it as 100% acid. It is soluble in water at a max. of 75% at 20°C. A varnish of tung oil or linseed oil has no solvents. Also URUSHI does not need solvents. The change of the molecular structure during curing is called polymerization. The same goes for polyurethane, but here solvents may be added to lower the viscosity or as accelerators of the chemical reaction.

I cannot comment on the coins but the TSUBA look like originals to me. They have very likely been treated with a steel brush, so all patina is gone and all edges became bright and shiny. The SOTEN TSUBA may not be a genuine one but a Japanese fake as there are many of them. The rounded square TSUBA on the right might not look too bad when restored, I believe.

Lance, thank you! I think I understand now, what could have been meant. After refining the steel, that last fold has also to be done at welding temperature so maybe I missed his idea a little.

Pardon, Thierry, I am a bit slow today and don't get what you want to express. I was only citing Haynes, and I wanted to explain that folding cannot be done after forging.

Ken, you are perfectly right. I did not want to express that forging knowledge is essential for aesthetic studies or evaluation of an arts object. But as special technical knowledge is available now (and where I have concentrated on) I did not want to leave it unsaid. It is my personal approach to a better understanding of TSUBA, that is all. As more knowledge is on the table, I think that it should be allowed to say that some older information is not at today's level, even if the respective authors absolutely have their merits in their fields of interest. Interesting enough, there is a parallel in ceramics to what you say. When Bernard Leach, a famous British potter, asked his Japanese teacher, KANJIRO KAWAII, about the chemical composition of ceramic glazes, the latter did not understand the question. He replied: 'If you do it the same way I have done it all my life, you will get the same results.' But we in the West are obviously different, and asking questions can lead to insights that can replace older ones. There is still another point I want to shed light on. In Japan, arts and crafts were never far away from each other, so I think we should not separate these ways too much by saying: I am only interested in the artistic facts of a TSUBA and I dont care how it was made. That would, at least in my understanding, not do justice to the subject.