rkg

The aizu shoami guys did a lot of pieces like this. Here's a (sort of) similar piece from my own collection: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1266641850057827 Best, rkg (Richard George)

TIm's comments are interesting... Here's an image of a kozuka I have papered to Goto Joshin that seems to go with this "made to look worn" aesthetic - the uttori has been carefully rolled back and/or removed to get that "shabby chic" look: (sorry about the dodgy image - its the only one I can find at the moment) and couple of images of another kozuka attributed to Joshin showing this deliberate aging (along with a good amount of honest wear :-) ) that I snarfed an image of (I do not own the copyright/these images are presented for educational purposes only): Back to work, Best, rkg (Richard George)

Mito? Best, rkg (Richard George)

I saw where it came from, and yeah, that attribution seems er, funky - as to how they got it, perhaps it was this: (I don't own the above image, it is being presented for the h*ll of it) Best, rkg (Richard George) (losing his mind trying to deal with family issues)

I'm takin' a break from tearing down a lighting setup, so... Its pretty old - look at the crud in the inome holes, etc - its really really hard to fake that - I should have put up a larger version - I decided not to blow the sh*t out of the mimi, etc to more accurately show the age of the piece. I'm pretty sure its from the nambokuchou period (14th Century). Its not ainu (they never paid much attention to mon and the ones on here are somewhat primitive but correct) - Curran may be right on the northern attribution though I've not seen enough of these to have a really good feeling for that. The most repeated mon is associated with the Date family . I actually think the ji would be classified as bronze rather than yamagane. The piece is a bit of a monster (as Curran alluded to it weighs over 300 (well, 308) grams). Haynes posited that it had to have gone on some kind of odachi - probably one that had a bearer carrying it around for the user. The fukurin does go around everything, but its seen better days. Pics - ya gotta see the other new ones when the catalog comes out, but ... I think I posted this before but if you didn't see it, here's a VR image set showing the front of the piece: http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/tachi_tsuba/old_tachi_front/old_tachi_front.html and here's some other older ones: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1199980956723917 Oops - that took tooooo much time - back to work rkg

Enjoy, rkg (RIchard George)

here's a couple: Back to work, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, It looks like some of the questions were already answered... What this stuff "used" to look like is an interesting question - for the most part this whole box thing is really pretty recent - they used to keep tsuba/kodogu in folded paper fukuro - I've seen examples of early edo to as late as taisho period pieces that were stored/presented in this manner. Please post the details if you find somebody who actually knows how to do these otoshi the way that the Japanese do - I've fiddled with making otoshi in the past, and have generally used some kind of kimono silk for the ones I did. Best, rkg (Richard George)

The mei kind of looks right, so maybe this was a deal?.... https://www.sendico.com/yahoo/lot_b334655153.html for posterity, here's one of the images from the auction. I do not own the copyright to this image/am posting it here for educational purposes only... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Here's my contribution to the desecration of Japanese artifacts: and things have been so crazy that I -still- haven't had time to cut it to the right length and crimp the ends on Best, rkg (Richard George)

Just to resurrect an old dead thread... Might have been a deal back then - prices on these piece seem to be going nuts these days: https://www.sendico.com/yahoo/lot_f289927292.html I think this reads "toshinori" - one of Kiyotoshi's (many) students - at least he rates a mention in the genealogy in sesko's book, but... Best, rkg (Richard George)

It looks like it starts out "Yama shiro kuni"... then it gets illegible (to me anyway) - it looks like somebody overwrote the kaneiye on the left side of the nakago ana maybe? Weird. Or maybe its just lack of caffeine... In any case I wouldn't think this piece is that old - I'd posit mid to late edo, but as usual that opinion is probably worth what you paid for it... Best, rkg (Richard George)

I'd say its the real deal - you can see seppa wear on the front, the nakago ana adjustments look right, you see crosshatching like this for nunome installaton that they sometimes had no intentioni to close up where the inlay wasn't, etc. whether its valuable is a different question. I'd say not particularly, but if its been in the family it has other value, so... I don't recognize the group, but I've been sleep deprived lately, so that might be expected :-/ Preservation of iron is a touchy subject with tsuba - there are whole camps arguing about whether to oil/wax/what (if anything) to do about "bad" rust, etc. I'd probably start out reading Jim Gilbert's diatribe on this: http://home.earthlink.net/~jggilbert/Cleaning.htm Enjoy studying it :-) Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hmmm... Not sure what I've currently got that really personifies this aesthetic - as a pal commented "lotsa wabi,but sabi..." :-) Maybe this? here's a couple of others: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Deleted 'cause I thought I hadn't posted images of a kawari piece here before Best, rkg (Richard George)

Its kawari... :-) I'm a sucker for kawari gata pieces so I was actually kind of tempted to bid on this, but.... This seller's shooting style (either accidentally or deliberately) tends to er, downplay a lot of potential issues - here's some images from the auction that I reprocessed to show what was lurking the highlights and shadows - The seller says in the auction there are losses, but you don't really see how many until you "shine a light" on the piece: http://www.rkgphotos.com/recent_stuff/kawari_tsuba_images_reprocessed.jpg disclaimer: for educatioinal/criticism purposes only - I do not own the copyright to these images. I keep thinking a useful app to put together could be called "auction goggles", and it would be a tool to do stuff like this, try and sharpen fuzzy images, etc so potential bidders could actually see what they are bidding on :-) Best, rkg (Richard George)

Patrick, In addition to the characteristics above you also have to look at the surface condition (you could probably write a book on that), "type" of iron, the edges of the sukashi (sharp edges tend to indicate later/fake/rework for example), how the sukashi are cut, the amount/type of corrosion/"crud" built up in the sidewalls of sukashi, low spots and nakago adjustment divots, erosion in/around the seppa area (no seppa "wear" often indicates later/rework/modan), hitsu shape (While they can be added at any time, an early shaped kozuka/kogai hitsu often helps to show its old or a new er, utushi), the condition/type of sekigane, and probably a half dozen other things I can't remember this morning. And of course, a lot of these age "clues" get washed away if somebody has repatinated the piece. What do the inside walls of the sukashi look like on yours? From these pics they are maybe close to the same as the surface of the piece? and your sekigane also have that repatinated look to me (at least this morning pre-caffeine) as well. Not necessarily a bad thing (unless it reeks of that selenium patination agent IMHO), but it makes determining the age a LOT harder, if not impossible. Best, rkg (RIchard George)

Steve's piece is much better in hand than in his pics - he showed me this piece at the SF show and I was sorely tempted to get it to photograph if nothing else... I would still be tempted, but I'm being run ragged by work, my dad's health issues, stuff breaking, etc. But I digress... I'm not sure his piece is tempo work though - their sukashi implementation is usually a lot less sophisticated. Good luck, rkg (Richard George)

Um, that's an image of the back and there are hot stamps on it :-) - doesn't look like a bad piece though :-) FWIW, If you like this style of tsuba, you might consider looking for some pieces from the group is considered the school the Tempo guys came from - the Saotome group. They seem to be known mostly for their kiku sukashi/shaped pieces, but there is a large body of pieces attributed to them (especially their earlier ones) that are excellent (great iron, composition, construction, etc) - and usually not terribly expensive. Some of the tempo guys' earlier work (like the first two I posted earlier) match or is better, but most of the later tempo work just doesn't compare (All of this IMHO, of course). I've posted pictures of a number of them in the past here/on the kodogu no sekai page, and you can find more with an image search - and decent ones are coming up for sale -all the time- (unlike good tempos). and a few even have hot stamps :-) Back to work, rkg (Richard George)

Hmmm. To my eye, about the only one that might be early-ish is the second one - the first one might be too, but is it lacquered or something? These aren't bad, but... a lot of what gets tossed in the tempo bin is really pretty mediocre and is perhaps not what you want to study as being exemplars of their best work. In addition, a surprising number of groups used hot stamps from time to time, so often pieces aren't even by the group - it might be better to call them tempo style... Here's a couple of (IMHO) good examples. The first one is probably the best I've ever seen: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=839106636144686 https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=966355546753127 Good Luck, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: I shouldn't type these late at night - I forgot a word...

Hi, I'm actually crazy busy shooting and post processing kodogu images, but I managed to slip a piece or two of my own recent acquisitions into the workflow... Here's a piece I just found on fleabay. The piece measures 82.1mm (H) X 77.9mm (W) X 3.6mm(T, nakago ana), 5.4mm (max, mimi) The piece is coated with black lacquer, and you can see evidence of a folded plate in the kozuka hitsu When I saw it on fleabay, I figured it was Tempo or maybe saotome, but in hand the mimi doesn't seem to be done as they would, so I'm thinking it might have been done by somebody associated with the myochin or something. Oh, and one of the (er, not so great) ebay images - note that I don't own the copyright for this particular image and it is being presented for educational purposes only: I'm planning on bringing this piece to the SF show, so drop by if you want to see it in hand.. Now back to work.... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Ford, I've been insanely busy, but I didn't forget about this... really... I talked to Haynes some about this, and I kinda got the feeling maybe this is dogma - he commented something about the bits to be inlaid being made like/by the people making menuki at the time.. but a lot of the menuki from this period were done in repousse, right? while these inlay aren't -that- thin, it seems like it would be more work than its worth to cast them - so are you thinking that they hammered them from the back to get the 3-d shaping? Best, rkg (Richard George)

3m makes a printable post-it note material that you can get in 8.5X11 sheets - you have to work around the placement of the post-it adhesive on the back (it is in 5 large strips running down the page), but it works great (and it theoretically doesn't damage anything). Just get access to a wheel paper cutter (READ: rotatrim) and you're golden (you can put the slice through the middle of the edge ones as you cut them off...) You can see a bunch of them I made up on the kodogu no sekai farcebook page. Best, rkg (Richard George)

FWIW, I came across a style of these box bags not too long ago that is open at the end: These are really handy as you can then stick a label on the end of the box so you can see which box it is at a glance in the safe, etc: (the two boxes at the top of the image) I just sent off a pile 'o boxes to have Elliott Long's (http://www.shibuiswords.com) better half make up some of these for me... They do them pretty reasonably, and... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I'm at it again - here's another video showing some pieces I'm bringing to the SF sword show to put on the table: enjoy, rkg (Richard George)