rkg

Here's a couple of close-ups of the little guy on both the front and back: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Looks like a tosho to me... Swapped box? Best, rkg (Richard George)

Chris, Both sides are shown - the figures are pretty much identical - I did enlargements of the back side because the figures are in better shape. here's an enlargement of the lower part of the front side: Best, rkg (Richard George)

John, Thanks for the reply! I think you're right - Koto bridges it is Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, Here's another recent acquisition: The piece measures 81.0mm (H) X 77.6mm (W) X 4.57mm (T, nakago area), 6.35mm (T, max). The piece is sanmai construction with what appear to be shakudo outer plates and a yamagane core. I has lot of lacquer on the surface - and you can see gold uttori/remnants on most of the figures. Both sides look the same, like they were both punched down in the same mold, though the nanako appears to be different. There is a shakudo fukurin which appears to have been added (possibly as a replacement for an earlier one or damage repair?). here's a few close-ups: The piece appears to be pretty old - aside from the crud, details like the gold appearing to be uttori, etc would point to it being from the Muromachi period. The thing is that I ahve not clue what the theme is - you got a bowl, a little guy running around that appears to be holding some crabs, an octopus(?), some crabs, and a pine branch at the top. Are these items related to a particular festival, legend, etc, or...? I spent some time looking through Joly and struck out on finding something (though given the random organization of the book, I'd believe I missed something). Any help appreciated... Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, Here's another Saotome tsuba I recently acquired. The piece measures 77.5mm (H) X 75.8mm (W) X 4.70mm (T, seppa area), 5.84mm (T, mimi). I'm kind of stumped on the sukashi though - Does anybody have a guess as to what it represents? There's some scratching on the front, but it appears to be under the patina, so its been there for (quite a) while. I don't think its as old as or in as good a condition as my fan one (below), but I'm guessing this new one is from the late Muromachi to Momoyama period in any case Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

Kyle/Peter, Thanks! I appreciate you guys taking the time to reply - the piece is not circular (though it might have been cut down) and its sanmai (on a copper base, not iron) so it looks like hakko gaki doesn't relate to the piece. Oh well.. Its a nice box anyway... I'll post some images of the piece itself to the kodogu section when I have time to shoot it... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I just received a large ko-kinko tsuba and was surprised to find a lengthy hakkogaki that the seller handn't mentioned. I wanted to see if it went with the piece or not, but I can't read a single character of this guy's writing - any help appreciated - I'll post another image with the translation written in when the dust has settled. Sorry for the mediocre image - I'm supposed to be doing year end stuff, and I didn't have the time to go throw it on the table so I just scanned it Best, rkg (Richard George)

I was wr... Not right. after spending some more quality time with the microscope (and blocking one/the other gooseneck light to get some depth), I realized that what I thought was silver is actually just the patina being really really thin on the high points (can you say er, enthusiastic cleaning) - my bad... I'd add an edit to the above, but i seem to have gone beyond the magic time to to do that.... rkg (Richard George)

Christian, I have to disagree on the age. Its older than that (the brass corrosion deposits in the inome holes are original and really thick - The more I study it, the more I wonder if its even as late as Momoyama). And yeah, the hitsu/plugs were added later. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Here's another tsuba from the last batch I got. Its a bit of a head scratcher. The tsuba was labeled ko-shoami, but I don't know... The beastie measures 75.9mm (H) X 75.4mm (W) X 3.94mm (T, seppa dai), 4.32mm(T, max) the piece's raised areas appear to have been created by etching the ji back, and the "nunome" is curious - it appears that a sheet silver was attached to the surface which was then crosshatched and then a bit of gold was applied to that here and there - again, I didn't shoot a microscope image, but here's a close-up showing the details... So, should it be binned as ko-shoami, Hoan, what awa shoami, or...? comments apprecated. thx, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, While we're on the topic of yoshiro/heianjo/etc work, here's yet another piece I just got/shot: The little beastie measures 64.4mm (H) X 55.9mm (W) X 4.57mm (T, plate), 5.46mm (T, max) When I got the piece I knew there were some minor losses (classically if 90% or more of the inlay is still there, its "acceptable"), but in hand it shows something I haven't seen before - the losses were filled in with something - I'm guessing lacquer. I didn't take time to shoot an image through the microscope, but the filler looks like its been there for a loooong time. But I digress - as you can tell from the workmanship it sure looks like kaga yoshiro work, but I had never seen one with an inlay like this before (of course, YMMV on that as I'm not a kaga connoisseur). Enjoy, rkg (Richard George)

Markus, Thanks for taking the time to reply! Grrr - I even have this book of yours.... so it should be some kind of ishime - do you have an idea which one it should be? Interesting that those little blossom shaped punch marks would apparently also classify... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Franco, that's a fair question I think -it could well be some ishime variant, I just don't recall one that looks like this/it just doesn't look stone like to me really... Anybody out there know what it -really should be called? thx, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I've been busy (re) shooting stuff, and here's another new piece you might find interesting. the piece is made from brass (obviously), and measures 78.5mm (H) X 74.3mm (W) X 3.68mm (T, web, measured at nakago ana), 5.59mm (T, max). The surface treatment on the web appears to be irregular sized nananko. The piece has old T.K. papers to tachishi, though I still don't have a good feeling for what the actual distinction is between the tachi-shi bin and the tachi-kanagu-shi bin - the books say the tachishi guy did the prep work for the tachi-kanagu-shi tsuba maker, but both also just made pieces - whaaaaat?....... Anyway, I'd guess its Momoyama to early edo period work, but what do I know.... Enjoy, rkg (Richard George)

Thanks guys! rkg (Richard George)

Good question on the wabi-sabi "look" - Its always enlightening to get un-messed with pieces out of Japan as you can see lots of examples of pretty worn down/decayed pieces that were loved and used and used - its amazing what they seemed to leave in place. But I don't think this corrosion on this piece was left for the aesthetic (though I probably will), if you look at the seppa plug on the back in the same quadrant, the bottom of it is corroded as well, which would make me think it wasn't deliberate/was maybe fairly recent (well, in the last 50 years or something?). I don't know the piece's history (I actually found it on fleabay of all places). Best, rkg (Richard George)

Mark, I suppose the yakite thing is still a up in the air - I've seen several sources say its a chemical treatment, and it kind of makes sense. One fellow I know did a bunch of experiments and claimed he could get the finish, but from his description his process sounded pretty brutal, and I think any kind of fine surface details like are on this piece (including the mei which seems to have been added before the finish - kind of like you see on early yummies) would be eroded away. Maybe they used a "hot" process on pieces with little added surface detail like ones binned as Kanayama or something, but on stuff like this... The first image shows the color of the iron more - what you are seeing in the second image is the reflection of the light on the surface (kind of a trade off - color vs. detail). Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I was looking at a gun at a pal's place the other day, and was stumped by what they had done to the firing mechanism. It looks like they put a chunk of iron/steel ground down to a stepped tip where the cord should go. What kind of conversion is this? Did they put a cap down in the touch hole and use this to set it off, hope the steel would strike a spark in the touch hole, or what? in any case it looked like it was doing a number on the top of the touch hole cover, fwiw. Also check out the touch cover hinge pin - it looks like it has some age to it, but has what looks like copper safety wire in the bottom - what's with that...? Is that the way these were done? I keep thinking I should get one of these beasts one of these days, but what I know I don't know about them is daunting... Comments appreciated. Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, If anybody's motivated, could I get a sanity check on this translation? the first kanji is what, "hide", and the second one is one of the "naga" variants? is that right? Thanks in advance, rkg (RIchard George)

Hi, since I haven't posted any new images for a while, here are a few of a piece I got not too long ago: The piece represents maple leaves , is signed Umetada, and measures 79.1mm (H) X 73.15mm (W) X 4.45mm (T, at nakago ana), 3.81mm (T, near mimi). you can see that it is (was) a bit corroded in the lower r,h, quadrant on the back - I did the usual "5 minutes of rubbing" on the area, but am not certain I want to mess with it more than that. A yakite shitate surface are supposed to be a chemical etch, but if you look at that area, it seems like the surface is more rust resistant than the substrate. you can see some crosshatching under the gold on the veins, so it appears to be nunome work. I think its from the Edo period, though maybe earlier than later (seems like the later work is less "tea tasty" in general)., I reshot it to make the mei more visible - I'll show both sides here shot the same way since it highlights different features of the piece: Enjoy, rkg (RIchard George

very cool! Now you just need some labels for the ends so you know what's where (really handy for those of us with CRS) :-) https://www.facebook.com/266005023454853/photos/a.266009073454448.82484.266005023454853/1536611539727522/?type=3&theater FWIW, (as outlined on that page), I've been using this post-it note photo paper which seems to work pretty well and (unlike the other labels the Japanese seem to use), they're easily removed and don't leave a mess when you change things out :-) Best, rkg (Richard George)

Wah, And I thought still photo guys had an esoteric vocabulary - actually had to look that one up (not a video guy, remember? :-) ). for my actual video testing I was using a Canon 5d MKII, which seemed to produce pretty reasonable 1080 in most other applications with the right settings - I'd run the shutter speed up to where there shouldn't have been noticeable but the really high frequency details just kind of vanished when in motion - Like I said, you could probably do better if you had a camera that could capture the data w/o mpeg compression applied, but I'm not sure what outside of a Red can do that... (but again, what do I know - hopefully some of the video gurus on the list will get motivated and do a test or three...). the "videos" of swords I post are generated with software panning through a still image so there is no shutter angle. Your rule of thumb is interesting - let's see - on a 20000 pixel wide image... I've been meaning to experiment with what you're describing for a while (off axis "beauty runs",etc) - probably not too hard if you aren't looking for much detail (say just showing off the "glowing nie" under a light), but it you want super high detail.... more interesting... rkg (Richard George)

Wah, On the video... I've experimented with that a bit, fwiw, and on top of the usual problems (rumble in whatever you are using to move the camera and/or sword, etc), there is a HUGE problem with losing fine details when moving using mpeg4 (H.264) compression during recording and also with most codecs when decoding - maybe the new mpeg-H compression will be better, but... The first problem was why I gave up on trying to fly a camera over a sword while recording video and went to just "walking" through a large image. You can actually see the second (codec) issue on -any- of the videos I've put up of runs along a sword - observe the detail visible when the video is running, and then pause it - you'll see a visible increase in the perceived detail in the stopped image (be sure to set the youtube options to hd 1080 as they look like a miserable mess at the low rez that youtube usually defaults to). Its also why I move items in those videos REALLY SLOWLY.... And actually, I do have up video file so you can take the youtube compression issues out - here's a test file I did, where I only stepped through the image slowly rather than REALLY SLOWLY, and the problem is pretty obvious.... http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/osoraku_test.mp4 That said, I think maybe a Red/some other high end video gear might have a mode where it doesn't try and compress the captured images and lets you handle it in post to deal with this compression when recording issue, but I'm not sure as I don't normally do video stuff - I'm guessing you'll still have the rumble/vibration/motion blur issues to deal with then (diatribe on each problem and how maybe you could fix it deleted). I'd guess you could take a stop action approach, but you'll need a decent motion control system for whichever element you decide to move (though you might have to do some kind of frame to frame alignment given the crazy high detail/contrast, but what do I know...). Maybe somebody out there has some expensive video toys/motion system to play with?? :-) Best, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: I fixed a few terms (I hate this CRS stuff)/obvious typos...